Mistress America
Directed by Noah Baumbach. With Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear, Michael Chernus and Heather Lind,
Playing at Regal Park Place Stadium 16, Regal Cinemas Citrus Park 20, AMC Veterans 24, AMC The Regency 20 and Burns Court Cinema.
A cinematic coming-of-age tale — snooze, right? A coming-of-age tale set in New York City. Super snooze.
However, the overplayed motif — when tackled by Noah Baumbach (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, The Squid and the Whale) and Greta Gerwig (Greenberg, Frances Ha) — is weird, refreshing and in no way snooze inducing. Because, let’s face it, we’re all growing up. All the time.
Mistress America, which also stars co-writer Gerwig, examines the fact that growing up is a process that sometimes extends well into our thirties, despite what the innumerable coming-of-age stories on film and television depict. It is not an experience reserved for teens and young adults.
The story begins with Tracy Fishko (played by Lola Kirke, who you might remember as the trailer-park girl you hated in Gone Girl), an aspiring writer and college freshman living in New York City. The first few weeks of her collegiate experience is typical of most – attempting to forge connections by attending dorm room parties, eating sloppy dining hall food.
Tracy, constantly adorned in berets and chunky sweaters layered overtop button ups, possess a quiet confidence. Her perpetual smirk is reminiscent of her sister’s, Jemima Kirke, who has played Jessa on HBO's Girls for five seasons, and who she bears an uncanny resemblance to.
Hailing from New Jersey, Tracy imagined a much more romantic, artistic New York City. Instead of painting the city as a of a land of opportunity, the film depicts an more isolating, bleak New York, set to a downtempo, synthy soundtrack (courtesy of Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips).
Sensing her loneliness and dissatisfaction, Tracy’s mother gives her the phone number of her soon-to-be sister-in-law and New Yorker, Brooke Cardinas, played by Gerwig.
Gerwig’s past performances in Greenberg (2010) and the terribly underrated Frances Ha (2012) proved that she is a formidable force. Her demeanor is dripping with an awkward honesty. Gerwig has an unusual aesthetic and delivery. Puzzlingly beautiful (Tracy says of Brooke, “Her beauty was that rare kind that made you want to look more like yourself and not like her.”) and self-effacing, Gerwig’s presence on screen is comforting. She has that very rare quality that makes you feel, “I know this girl.”
Brooke makes her entrance sauntering towards Tracy down the illuminated TKTS steps in Time Square. It is an arrival that epitomizes her character – externally glamorous, fun, confident. Alive.
Brooke is brimming with grand stories and an optimistic ambition that is inherently suspect. She is a free-spirit breaching her thirties with endless enthusiasm, but no clear direction. Brooke talks incessantly about herself, and interrupts people to blurt out random and unrelated facts like, “I watched my mother die.” She credits herself as a freelance interior decorator, a screenwriter, a singer, a math tutor and a spin instructor. She is a walking contradiction, spewing lines like, “He is one of those kinds of people I hate, except I’m in love with him.”
Somehow, it still didn't make me dislike her.
Tracy eats it up, too, falling in love with Brooke's bravado. Most of their interactions entail Brooke telling elaborate stories or detailing her ideas for business ventures, ignoring or rejecting input from Tracy. Brooke adores having someone to hang onto her every word. Meanwhile, Tracy uses Brooke as literary inspiration.
The night of their meeting, Brooke inspires Tracy to write a short story, titled “Mistress America” and renaming Brooke as Meadow. The story, which she submits to her school's prestigious literary zine, details Meadow’s delusions and eccentricities: “She did everything and nothing.”
A thirty-year-old who dabbles in everything, but has no discernible way to make a living, Brooke is the poster child for young adults attempting to navigate life. Her façade is shiny and exciting. Crack open the shell, and she is plagued with self-doubt and failure.
The themes of Mistress America — ambition vs. success and money vs. happiness — are universal. Tracy and Brooke are trying to find out what these things mean to them at their respective places in life. Although they are the antithesis of each other, their paths run parallel, as each woman serves a purpose for the other on their journey of self-discovery.
Gerwig captures Brooke in all of her overzealous, manic glory. She is all at once fascinating, abrasive and lovely. If Gerwig’s writing and on-screen magnetism in Mistress America is any indication, she will avoid the too-obvious pigeonhole of the “quirky, indie girl.” Her talent is too expansive to be contained.
Gerwig and Baumbach’s screenplay is riddled with persistent quips and witty one-liners. There are no lulls in the script, and the dialogue is much more rapid fire than that of the real world. But, it totally works. Every member of the small cast is a caricature in their own way — overly sensitive, overly ambitious, overly confident, overly controlling. These extremes create something real and familiar. The characters are simultaneously annoying and charming, and it is easy to find bits of yourself in each of them.
The climax of the film takes place in the sterile, sprawling contemporary home of Brooke’s nemesis, Mamie-Claire and her husband, (and Brooke’s former boyfriend) played hilariously by the cherubic Michael Chernus. The interactions between the seven main/supporting characters stuck in this house are comedic magic, and it is during the scene that it becomes clear just how smart and special this screenplay truly is.
At its core, Mistress America is a film about two different kinds of self-discovery. It’s about how hope transforms as we age – that fearful, glimmery hopefulness that accompanies being eighteen, and the residual floundering, jaded hopefulness that remains as you enter your thirties. At both points in time, we are trying to really know ourselves – to know the people around us. Mistress America reminds us that at both points, this task is equally perplexing and beautiful.
This article appears in Aug 27 – Sep 2, 2015.