Mistress America

There are several reasons why Mistress America may be considered a wonderful movie. It doesn't take itself too seriously, and has a very sophisticated sense of humour. The main actors all have exaggerated characters that always behave in certain ways (kind of like the cast in The Office) -- and the actors play these roles to perfection.

The writing and delivery of dialogue in the climax of the film is particularly amazing, with fast, witty exchanges filled with little jokes. Yet, the movie vacillates from hilarity to melancholy without warning the viewer, which makes the film all the more special.

The depiction of and commentary on NYC, youth, etc. is all spot on, making this movie worth the watch.

Finally, the soundtrack is excellent too, giving the movie a very alt/indie feel.

Many negative reviewers sadly fail to appreciate the sophisticated writing and humour, along with the truly wonderful job that the lead actors have done in this unpretentious flick.

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

Taking place in New York City about now, "Mistress America" focuses on the life of Tracy who is a freshman in college. She aspires to be a writer—easy to tell because she's aloof, detached, alone, and looking for friends. Her mom's getting remarried so Tracy has an older sister-to-be in Brooke, one of those cinematic forces of nature like a young Katherine Hepburn, perhaps. Brooke takes Tracy into her life of late-night concert performances, high-output spinning, fashion, finance, clandestine apartments, absent lovers, and a nascent restaurant business. In many ways, this is a buddy movie as Tracy learns fierce independence from Brooke, who she greatly admires.

Like all buddy movies, Tracy's and Brooke's relationship has ups and downs, complicated by the literary understory. Then the whirlwind pace goes surreal as the New Yorkers head to Greenwich, Connecticut in search of—something. We think it's one thing but it's not. I guess Greenwich, seat of the uber wealthy in the US financial arena, is actually a surreal place.

This is an intensely witty movie with a very chewy script handled ably by the very smart cast. Many call "Mistress America" a comedy but funny is clearly not this movie's main goal. To call it a "screwball comedy" is to not properly describe its intellect. The movie is saying something about envying the lives of others, which most of us do to one extent or another. It's a thoughtful movie, and it will be uncomfortable for some to watch if you, like Tracy, are not centered within your own mind and body. And after all, who is?

We saw this movie thanks to the San Jose Camera Cinema Club.

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.

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.