Every time that I mention Mistress America, someone says, “You should really see Frances Ha. It is better.” Frances Ha was already in the queue long before I saw the previews for Mistress America. I will move it up in the queue. Thanks. I decided that I wanted to see Mistress America in theaters for several reasons: NYC, the energy it captures, Greta Gerwig and cats. I was not disappointed. Mistress America captures an energy that retains its cinematic quality while walking a thin line between a screwball play and a sitcom without descending into nonsense because its characters are well written and rooted in enough reality to keep you from rolling your eyes when the momentum becomes predictable.
Mistress America is about a college student looking for a connection and inspiration at college (extracurricular activities, love interests, roommates) or NYC, but fails to discover it there. Tracy finally finds what she is looking for when she contacts her soon-to-be-stepsister, Brooke, thanks to her mother’s online dating success. Brooke needs an audience/assistant/best friend and happily has to befriend a younger person who can appreciate her energy and creativity unlike her contemporaries who cultivate stability and success and have left that youthful take out menu approach to life a long time ago. Tracy is looking for a character and adventure and borrows some of Brooke’s charms to gain confidence. They are also both trying to fill the holes left at home by the loss of their parents because of failure or circumstance. Fast relationships in which the two are inseparable from day one have to flame out relatively soon, and all the narrative elements introduced throughout the film suddenly come together in a socially disastrous and delicious climax. Thanksgiving is a pipe dream.
I loved everything about Mistress America. Some of the lines hit me like a freight train with their emotional resonance. “I need someone I can love, not keep up with.” Even though Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke dominate Mistress America, no character is under developed except the jealous girlfriend. Even the muted, but vitriolic exchanges between the next-door neighbor and Brooke’s ex-best friend felt like it could spin off into its own movie. The entire cast is perfect. Mistress America does not get weighted down by economic realities, but accurately captures how NYC has become cost prohibitive for the very people that love it-the dreamers. I don’t have strong feelings about Noah Baumbach except that he feels like Wes Anderson’s distant cousin without the Smurfette complex or the monotone voice, which I recently learned is called the distancing effect or Verfremdungseffekt. I thought this about Baumbach BEFORE I imdb’ed him, and saw that they have worked with each other. I liked Greenberg. I vaguely feel like I’ve watched more of his films, but have no memory of them and did not rate them on Netflix so maybe I did not. I should change that. Mistress America may have made me a believer in Baumbach.