Mistress America

This film tells the story of two young women who will become step sisters after their parents' marriage. They meet and bond quickly, and they go through life events in quick succession in the space of a few weeks.

"Mistress America" is a simple film that is dependent on dialogue and interesting characters. The quick pace and rapid fire dialogues remind me of Woody Allen films, and I think in here the dialogues are really good as they give the main characters distinct personalities. Brooke is very creative, bubbly, quirky but likable. Even the supporting characters are special, such as the jealous girlfriend and the rich woman who steals Brooke's ideas. There is so much going on in the film, even in the first ten minutes I thought I have already watched for much longer because so much has happened. I really enjoyed this charming film.

Saw this today after seeing many 5 star reviews in many publications and billboards here in London. To say I'm disappointed would be to employ gross understatement.

The premise is interesting and creates big expectations from the outset (two young women - one has hit 30 and the other is a English Lit freshman at a NY university form an unlikely friendship when they are on the verge of becoming step-sisters when their respective divorced parent arrange to get married to each other).

This is the kind of screenplay Woody Allen could write in his sleep; but where Allen would exhaust the budding friendship of all its possibilities for humour, melancholy & therapy, Baumbach chooses instead to write an overly arch and self-conscious piece where all the characters seem to be on the same page in the same tribe with all involved being too cool and too smart for school; with all spouting dialogue that is too self-conscious for its own good. I would feel profoundly alienated in the company of these people in real life, where by contrast the characters in Wood Allen films always seem like friends I haven't met yet.

The whole story seems to be overy-worked, contrived, and reaching levels of shallowness I haven't witnessed for a long time. None of the characters are remotely warm or likable and by the end I didn't care what happened to Brooke or Tracy and their budding friendship.

Had Baumbach managed to get Wood Allen's involvement (as editor/collaborator) this could have been a highly humorous (I didn't laugh once and found a lot of the dialogue inaudible and localized for my understanding - Woody Allen never makes this mistake, his films are universal in their appeal even though they're set in the navel-gazing, therapy obsessed New York, there's a wonderful warmth and humour in his films which is just not present in 'Mistress America'.)

And as for the synth pop soundtrack it just seemed completely out of sync with the story and the main protagonists. I can't imagine either young female listening to synth pop composed in the 1980s - like OMD's 'Souvenir'. Play it once fine but repeat it later in the soundtrack sounds like 'clutching at straws' tactics to my ears.

On the plus side Greta Gerwhig clearly is a leading lady and I hope one day I see her again in a film that really showcases her talent. She reminds me of many other actresses like: Kate Winslet, Gwyneth Paltrow and would you believe Maria Sharapova?

She's like a hybrid of all these women and yet has her own unique presence and look - not to mention having a passing resemblance to a younger Catherine Deneuve? Has a bright future in film but the crazy character she plays in Mistress America doesn't flatter her beauty or talent very much.

For those who saw Frances Ha, the film's overall writing style and pacing will not be a surprise. Saying that however, it doesn't overdo the "cleverness" in the same way Frances Ha did, and overall it kind of works better. Greta Gerwig has never been better. She really steals every second of her screen time and is really just such a marvel to watch. She infuses her own acting style to this in a different way, so it doesn't really feel like any of her other characters. The whole cast here is aces, and it leads to such a great work from the entire ensemble at Mimi Rose's house. I definitely recommend this. It's fast and it's a marvel to watch the characters say the dialogue in such a fun, quick way.

I'm having a lot of trouble reviewing this film. On one hand, I really like all the actors, and even their performances, but I don't think this film really worked on all the levels it attempted to. Greta Gerwig is one of the top up and coming actresses working today, and i actually thought Lola Kirke did well in her first starring role. But the narrative never grabbed me like Noah Baumbach's other film Frances Ha did, also with Gerwig.

But the film is also not at all bad, in fact this may very well be the case of myself just not understanding what was intended with the script. It was just hard to buy into the premise when nothing is really set up at all. The film just pretty much jumps into the plot of Tracy and Brooke spending time together as they get to know each other before officially becoming step-sisters. Their relationship was interesting, but I didn't find it to be profound or anything like that. The latter half of the film takes place mainly in one area with close to 10 characters and it seemed to be way too dramatic and theatrical for a low budget story on a few relatively regular human beings.

It's unfortunate because the soundtrack and score are really quite good and seemed to fit for what they were going for at first, but the film just wasn't appealing enough for the score to really shine like it should have. I just feel like for a movie that is titled Mistress America, it should have been a more memorable outing. Sadly that's two Baumbach films this year that have been a bit of a letdown.

+Score/soundtrack

+Likable leads

-Why do I care about this story?

-Not much set up or payoff, to anything

5.5/10

Over the years, I've liked some of Noah Baumbach's films, but not others, and this one I'm sorry to say was disappointing. Here, Baumbach directed and co-wrote the script with Greta Gerwig.

The underrated and most talented Gerwig also stars in the movie as Brooke, a free spirit who's leading a whirlwind of a life, with a myriad of part-time jobs but looking to close a deal on a new restaurant, in the Williamsburg section of NYC.

Lola Kirke co-stars here and gives a fine performance as Tracy, a first year college student at Barnard, aspiring to be a writer but having loads of problems fitting in on campus. Brooke and Tracy are slated to be step sisters when Brooke's father and Tracy's mother marry in the near future.

Thus, when Tracy, at the urging of her mother, calls Brooke and they meet for the first time in Manhattan, Tracy finds herself willingly caught up in the cyclone of Brooke's life. Tracy even finds herself using Brooke as inspiration for her short story that she submits to the prestigious Mobius Literary Society at her college.

All of this seems well and good, but for me the problem with the movie is in the dialogue, which often came across to me as mostly pretentious, whiny, and even mean-spirited at times. Thus, the characters that emerged were so shallow and self-absorbed that I mostly lost interest in what would happen to any of them. When that happens to me as I view a film, I start checking the time wondering when it will be finally over.

Overall, Gerwig and Kirke are solid here, with many actors in supporting roles adding much as well. However, as mentioned the occasional clever or humorous line was overshadowed by dialogue that came across to me as affected and pretentious, leading to surfacy and shallow characters.