Movie Review: "Mistress America"

Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America starts out as a fairly good movie, and later turns into a completely different, much better one. And, it represents possibly the best showcase to date for Baumbach’s muse of choice, Greta Gerwig.

The film, which Baumbach directed and co-wrote along with Gerwig, is a modern New York story. Tracy (Lola Kirke), a bookish NYU freshman, arrives in New York and looks up Brooke (Gerwig), the daughter of the man her mother is preparing to marry. Brooke is an extrovert, an aspiring New York mover-and-shaker with her hand in about ten different projects, one of which is a truly odd-sounding restaurant concept.

The two become fast friends, with Brooke’s life soon serving as material for Tracy’s short-fiction aspirations. But once things go sour, the film pivots radically in its second half, becoming a sort of door-slamming farce set in an opulent Connecticut home.

Intriguing as the first part of the film was, the second is even better, as we’re introduced to a gallery of great characters like Brooke’s best friend-turned-enemy Mamie-Cleare (Heather Lind) and her wealthy ex-boyfriend (Michael Chernus, Piper’s brother on Orange is the New Black.) The film’s ending, while not quite keeping up the pace of the Connecticut scenes, is still satisfying. And the film also clocks in a brisk 84 minutes.

Both leads are outstanding here. Kirke, the sister of Girls co-star Jemima Kirke, plays all the plot’s beats just right, while Gerwig is considerably more alive here than she ever was in her old mumblecore roles. Between this and 2013’s great Frances Ha, she’s got a good thing going with Baumbach (who she’s said to be dating.)

Mistress America is actually Baumbach’s second film this year, following the spring release While We’re Young. That film, a Woody Allen-aping exercise in inter-generational warfare, was something of a misfire, even if it did show the world that Ad-Rock from the Beastie Boys is a standout supporting actor. That movie was missing any type of emotional through-line- and it was also missing Greta Gerwig.