Mistress America (2015)

'MISTRESS America': Four and a Half Stars (Out of Five)

Acclaimed indie filmmaker Noah Baumbach, reteams with actress Greta Gerwig (for the third time); to make this hilarious, but very sweet, quirky comedy flick! The film was directed by Baumbach, written by Baumbach and Gerwig, and it costars Gerwig and actress Lola Kirke (of 'MOZART IN THE JUNGLE' fame). The movie tells the story of a depressed college freshman, who finds new inspiration for life; when she meets her 'soon-to-be' stepsister. The film is classic Noah Baumbach; who's becoming one of my favorite filmmakers!

Tracy Fishko (Kirke) just started her freshman year, at Barnard College; and she's having trouble fitting in. She develops a crush on another student, named Tony (Matthew Shear); but he begins dating another girl instead, named Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas Jones). Tracy's mother (Kathryn Erbe) is about to be married, and she advises Tracy to meet her fiancé's daughter, Brooke (Gerwig). Brooke is full-of-life, and she inspires Tracy, in ways she's never experienced before. So Tracy writes a fictional short story, influenced by Brooke, and she begins spending a lot more time, with her 'soon-to-be stepsister' (as well).

The movie is brilliantly written, and beautifully directed! The characters are extremely likable, and quirky, and the dialogue is all very witty, and fun too (there's so many classic, quotable lines; all through the movie)! The film is also really inspiring, hilariously funny, and it has a great (nostalgic) 80s feel to it, as well. I absolutely love it, and Noah Baumbach!

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Fmovies: It may seem odd, but I did like the actors, just not their parts. Most of them seemed miscast. But I did like them, and I wish them well. The director, I think, brought in too much swishing, swooshing movement and there was too much pseudo-sophisticated hyper-talk, which made the actors all seem amateurish. The story-line was so subtle, I never did get it, unless it was about lost,lonely souls living in New York, where everyone seems lost and lonely anyway. The characters were implausible (does anyone act like that in real life?). NONE of it seemed like real life. This truly did seem like a high school stage play with kids trying to put on a 'sophisticated' production. I actually wanted to get up and leave after about 20 minutes, but my spouse wouldn't let me because we'd already paid for it. The one thing that seemed true about it was that I really did feel everyone's pain. And that was due to the acting.

Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig are at it again, "it" being what it means to be a 20- something in New York City. In "Mistress America," however, the lens and perspective shifts away from the character you'd expect a movie like to this to intimately follow (Gerwig's interesting, ambitious, never-boring Brooke) and instead observes her from an outsider's perspective (Tracy, played by Lola Kirke).

Tracy is instead the main character, a Barnard freshman studying literature and writing, trying to make her way through that formidable (and familiar) landscape. Inspiration strikes, however, when she meets Brooke, her future step-sister. Brooke is around 30, and she's been through the grinder both personally and professionally. She is an innovator who always has big ideas, and Tracy uses her life as the basis of a short story that she hopes will get her into the school's prestigious lit magazine.

Things get particularly interesting when Brooke finds herself locked out of her apartment one day and learns that her boyfriend has pulled all his financial support out of a restaurant they were just about to open together and she seeks a psychic for advice on where to turn next.

Through this blossoming relationship between Tracy and Brooke we observe the typical indie film "portrait of a Millennial" in a way that both mythologizes it (evidenced by Tracy's story/perception of Brooke) and makes it hit home. Brooke is quirky and her life is a melodrama, but it also feels very real. Baumbach and Gerwig's previous collaboration, "Frances Ha," also struck this seemingly contradictory chord of authenticity and whimsy. When there is a dissonance, it's softened by the knowledge that there's such emotional truth at the core of what they're doing.

Another way of putting it is that Baumbach and Gerwig aren't so interested in plot points and what happens. At less than 90 minutes, this movie about a relationship between a younger and older 20-something is not trying to show you something you've never seen before. What they do care about is the trajectory of the relationships between characters. It's hard not to see a piece of yourself in the characters, especially if you're of a similar age, and that holds our attention enough that "Mistress America" doesn't fall apart, even when it's not especially compelling.

"Mistress America" also tends to be be philosophical and angsty. The level of intellectual conversation is to a degree that rarely happens in real life, let alone in these perfect scene-length snippets, but again, like other parts of the film that gravitate closer to being over-the-top, the creative choice to lean that way comes from a strong and earnest desire to explore very relevant themes and ideas.

Frankly, Baumbach and Gerwig could tell a hundred different stories about coming of age in your 20s or 30s in a big city and I'd watch (especially at such a reasonable runtime). But even if you don't think you could, the effort they make to explore a unique "relationship" between two women in "Mistress America" and cast light on this familiar film from a new angle makes this particularly story worthwhile.

~Steven C

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Mistress America fmovies. I'm a big Noah Baumbach fan. He is completely able to come up with clever, simple, original ideas and make a usually great movie out of them; but to my dismay, Baumbach's "Mistress America" is a bit of a miss.

The story was very nice, but the writing's cheap/obvious execution ruins it. There is a famous saying that originates from Anton Chekhov that is commonly used in film schools: "show don't tell." This picture breaks that simple saying in almost all of its lines, as characters will just randomly blurt out how they feel - all while keeping a neutral look on their face.

Baumbach has also made a living out of his quick wit and intellectual humor, but unfortunately in "Mistress America," he decided to throw intellect out the window.

There are a few redeeming factors: its Woody Allen-esque use of camera-work, fitting choice of music, and easy to like characters.

Though it doesn't live up to his previous films, "Mistress America" should be watched by Baumbach fans. If you don't like him, you won't like this; and if you haven't seen his other work, I recommend you watch that instead.

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.