Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig certainly make a cute couple. The filmmaker who has made a career out of mining veins of dark, sometimes ridiculous humor in first-world problems appears to have found his muse in Gerwig, the mumblecore goddess who has no trouble exposing herself either figuratively or literally on camera. Both have a knack for getting at the foibles of neurotic, self-involved white characters.
Their latest effort, Mistress America, practically follows the same setup as Frances Ha, their previous critically beloved collaboration, as Baumbach once again trains his lens on Gerwig’s motormouthed single with big aspirations in the Big Apple. (Baumbach and Gerwig wrote both movies.) But things are different this time around. For starters, unlike the black-and-white Frances, the movie’s in bright, sparkling color. (There’s even a color masterer listed in the opening credits.)
And Gerwig has an onscreen partner in Lola Kirke (little sister of Girls bad girl Jemima). Kirke is Tracy, a lonely college freshman/aspiring writer looking for someone to hang with. Enter Gerwig’s Brooke, her soon-to-be stepsister, a wannabe restaurateur and all-around party girl.
Things get more farcical down the line for the pair. Brooke’s dreams of owning a restaurant nearly go up in smoke, prompting her and Tracy to make a trip to the lavish home of Brooke’s frenemy (Heather Lind) — whose husband (Michael Chernus) was formerly Brooke’s boyfriend — to ask if they'll become investors. The second half becomes impressively screwball, as characters pop in and out of this space, shooting off dizzyingly well-calculated dialogue.
But amidst the high-brow hijinks that ensue during Mistress, Baumbach once again lays out how damn-near sociopathic people can get when they’re trying to be somebody other than themselves. Despite her bubbly demeanor and starry-eyed ambitions, Brooke is predictably self-centered. When she gets confronted by a grudge-carrying old schoolmate, Brooke is too much in her own world to realize how cruelly she treated her back in the day. And Tracy, who barely has a personality, is so enamored by her new BFF and her crazy life that she uses her as material for a less-than-flattering short story behind her back.
The thought of another indie about pretentious, tony, solipsistic white folk and their issues might not sound that appealing. But Baumbach and Gerwig expand their palette beyond that somewhat while keeping their observational gifts (and their comic timing) razor-sharp. Mistress America remains clever and entertaining even as the star-director writing duo exposes the confusion and loneliness lurking beneath the hipster façade. These lovebirds have claws.
