Mistress America brims with fantastic wordplay. Silky, solid words delivered with quick wit and quick rhythm. Keeping up with the rapid cadence is a joyful movie going experience that left me with two thoughts swimming in my mind:
- This is the most fun I’ve had watching a Noah Baumbach film. His indie film gloom has been replaced with a sense that he actually likes the characters he’s sharing. Vibrant. Fun. Leave the razors at home and crumple up that suicide note, Noah’s happy!
- Greta Gerwig is a rockstar!!! Let’s caps lock that. GRETA GERWIG IS A ROCKSTAR!!! She is a singular talent that lights up the film with her smile. And she co-wrote and produced so all that good stuff I said about the script…. That’s her too. I love her and I’m buying the Mistress America
What is golden with the film is the relationship between Gerwig’s Brooke and the young aspiring writer who is about to become Brooke’s sister, Tracy (Lola Kirke). They meet each other in Manhattan and instantly connect. They speak to each other as if they’ve known each other for always, Tracy glad to have found a friend in New York after just moving there for college and Brooke adhering to having a 21 year old look up/idolize her.
Their first meeting they speak about everything and nothing, 4 topics constantly on the table, not actually listening to each other but absorbing each other. This is a dynamic I’ve seen before in real life that does usually occur between two female friends and I have never seen it so accurately displayed on film. It is easy to get swept up in their excitement as it becomes contagious.
Now not all is absolutely perfect with the film and, as Quinten Tarantino recently said about the lovely horror film It Follows, Mistress America is “One of those movies that’s so good that you start getting mad at it for not being great.” Issues arise toward the end when things get forced and too textbook. Baumbach’s third act is a Hollywood tack on that doesn’t live up to the rest of the film.
But don’t let that hinder. I still left the theater in love.