Movie Review: Mistress America

3.5 stars out of 5

Let’s get one thing out of the way: Yes, I’m still head-over-heels in love with Greta Gerwig. She is delightful and should write and star in every movie forever. I loved Frances Ha from a couple of years ago and I rushed, rushed, rushed to see this new one, again co-written by her romantic partner/director Noah Baumbach, who is Jewish and about the same age as me. Just sayin’.

For a while watching Mistress America, I was thinking, “This is the best movie of the year, hooray hooray hooray.” I got caught up in the Gerwig whirlwind! (Note to self: Start band called “Gerwig Whirlwind.” Or maybe Gerwig and the Angry Inch?) Except we don’t getta Greta right away, because the real protagonist here is Tracy, as portrayed by Lola Kirke, who is apparently the daughter of Bad Company drummer Simon Kirke, and don’t you love it when a band has a song where the title is the band name? (“I’m in a Gerwig whirlwind, which way is up? Gerwig whirlwind, don’t wanna stop”) Tracy is a new freshman at Barnard. We get a much more realistic portrayal of college than in Woody Allen’s recent Irrational Man, which was interesting to me, because Noah and Greta clearly owe a huge debt to the Woodman in their smart, neurotic, upper-class, Manhattan-centric scripts.

Tracy meets up with her-soon-to-be blended-family older sister Brooke (GERWIG!) and we are off to the races, my friends. A wild night is calling (you know, like in After Hours), and the two women heed the call. It’s sweet to watch them bond, Brooke excitedly dragging along but also looking out for Tracy, as Brooke instantly becomes her hero. And my god, can you blame her? Brooke/Gerwig is sexy, funny, sharp, silly, lively, irrepressible. She’s an IT GIRL for the love of god. America’s sweetheart!

Ah, but is that a crack in the veneer I see? For perhaps you’ve met a person or two like Brooke who talk a real good game but, alas, lack follow-through? Something to think about, hmmm, Tracy? Hmmm?

So, all good up to now, except, the movie can’t quite follow through either. (Oooh! Irony!!) We get this long, long scene at a fancy house in the fancy suburbs. And there a lot of quirky people around including Dean from Luna who never had a song called “Luna,” and people say odd, funny things, and suddenly we’re in a screwball comedy. This madcap stuff didn’t surprise me (see Frances Ha — no, really, see it), but it simply didn’t fit with the heartfelt coming-of-age tale we were getting before. So the movie kind of loses steam, loses the thread, kind of drags, kind of is 15-20 minutes too long.

Which is not to say it’s not a good movie. It is. Lots of lots of laughs here—well-crafted jokes—and plenty of stuff to think about: pursuing dreams, wanting to be accepted or maybe not, getting disillusioned, using real life for creativity at the risk of hurting someone, aging and wanting to stay cool hey didn’t Noah Baumbach have another movie about that a few months ago, etc. And, oh yeah, Greta Gerwig is in it.