Everybody is so fond of sugar–coating college memories, we kinda forget it often sucked. Show me the dream roomie, for instance, and I’ll show you the kid who stayed at home most of the semester. Tracy (Lola Kirke) knows; she was first greeted by her Barnard roommate with, “turn it off. I’m sleeping!”
Mistress America spans Tracy’s first semester in college, and it blows. And the details of how and why it blows are pretty universal – Tracy just can’t find her groove. After several weeks of searching, she locates a like mind in Tony (Matthew Shear); the two bond over being rejected by the snooty campus literary society, but then that punk-ass bitch goes and gets himself a girlfriend. What’s up with that? On a whim, Tracy indulges her soon-to-wed mother and connects with her future “sister,” Brooke (Greta Gerwig), a thirtyish Times Square denizen.
The story kinda takes off here; Brooke is exactly who you think of when you picture both what’s right and what’s wrong with NYC – to say she’s full of life and energy is sell energy short; she’s the kind of girl who gets called on stage to join the band during a live performance … and then can’t pay her rent. She has no degree and, roughly, twenty different jobs ranging from personal trainer to interior decorator. Tracy is so taken by her night with Brooke, she writes a much better lit society piece entitled “Mistress America.”
Is it “cheating” for Tracy to pursue this avenue of friendship? Shouldn’t she be figuring out how to make college work instead of indulging what can’t possibly be a BFF relationship? Hard to say, but the times are fun and smiles frequent.
And then everything goes to Hell. Softly. Quietly. And without the patrons quite realizing it’s all going to Hell. And everything that was wonderful about free-wheeling universal-friend Brooke is flipped on its back, like a turtle, and her complete inability to get up from a crisis becomes just as much a deficit as her personality is an asset. And Tracy follows her straight on down.
One of these days, people are going to figure out how wonderful Greta Gerwig is on screen. I wonder if her personality is too big to be in a larger film, but I don’t think so. I know she’d be great in
those friend-of-somebody-falling-in-love roles that Hollywood never seems to tire of, but that doesn’t do her justice. I fully believe Gerwig deserved an Oscar nod for Frances Ha; nobody, and I do mean nobody, can quite match the full-package mess she presents, both awesome and tragically flawed in the exact same way for comic effect. I hope one day she gets the role that the world will know her for, but until then, enjoy films like this one.
Noah Baumbach has been doing this Manhattanite exploration thing for a while now; I usually dismiss his films offhand for failure to describe what’s so universal about the petty problems of one flawed person on a very congested island – and while one could describe the miserably titled Mistress America with precisely the same words, I feel the director here has much a better feel for getting the audience behind the subject. Nobody knows jealousy quite like Noah Baumbach, that’s for sure, but moreover, Mistress America taps generously into the otherwise insignificant moments that make or break happiness – this is my favorite Baumbach film, hands down.
Self-appointed Mistress Manhattan
Negotiates the entire town with a plan
Jill of all trades
Except, maybe, grades
Give a welcome to the Nowhere Woman
Rated R, 84 Minutes
D: Noah Baumbach
W: Noah Baumbach, Greta Gerwig
Genre: Makin’ friends the hard way
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Realists
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Cheerleaders
I think Baumbach has dibs on Gerwig and he refuses to let other directors have her.
HA! You may be right there. Shame, because the world ought to know Greta Gerwig rocks.