There are fantastic movie entrances, but none quite as loving or truly glorious as the one director Noah Baumbach gives his co-writer and muse Greta Gerwig in Mistress America. Their first collaboration since 2012's hipster dream Frances Ha doesn't feature Gerwig in the starring role, but when she comes in by walking down the tourist-magnet steps of Times Square, she has our attention and never lets go.
Mistress America is actually another coming-of-age story from Baumbach, who doesn't seem to care that this has become his forte. It's about Tracy (Lola Kirke), a freshman college student and hopeful writer whose mother (Kathryn Erbe) is about to get married again. Her mother urges her to contact her soon-to-be stepsister Brooke (Gerwig), who is also living in New York. Brooke is a modern Annie Hall, a woman whose ideas are all over the place. As Tracy writes, she's a woman who has everything, yet nothing at the same time. Despite clearly recognizing the flaws in Brooke, Tracy begins to idolize her and starts writing a short story that carries the same title as the film and one of Brooke's ideas for a TV show.
Brooke does have one plan that she is sticking with. She wants to open a restaurant that, like herself, is everything from a salon to an upscale bodega. Tracy follows Brooke's attempts to get this idea off the ground while secretly writing the short story.
While this is a coming-of-age story, it's hardly your typical one. Brooke isn't just a teacher for Tracy, as she's also going to learn from her protege. The two become friends immediately, but there's always the feeling that someone is trying to play the other. You get that feeling in Baumbach's previous film, While We're Young (2013), but it's much different. While the characters of While We're Young used each other for professional gain, Tracy and Brooke are just searching for someone to connect with. Their actual relationship is tenuous at best, but as the film develops, we realize there's an oft-repeated phrase at the heart of Mistress America. It's not about the end (or beginning) of a journey, it's about the adventures on the way. When Tracy asks if you've ever been on a trip that you wish wouldn't end, that trip could be her adventures with Brooke in total.
Tracy is just like the audience though when it comes to Brooke. Gerwig is an enchanting personality and it comes through better in Brooke than it did in Frances Ha. She can come off as tender and friendly one moment, but in other scenes, she is detached, like a star we should not touch. This is such a better, deeper and more challenging character for her and she hits all the beats. It's hard not to see how Tracy could love this character.
Lola Kirke, who was spotted in Gone Girl, is also fantastic. While Gerwig runs her mouth on about how you never know what it's like to want anything until you turn 30, Kirke sits at her side in disbelief. Her reactions fit perfectly with Baumbach's low-key sense of humor and even manages to draw attention from Gerwig.
One talent that Baumbach has that goes unnoticed is his mastery of timing and keeping a story going only as long as it needs to be. There's so much jam-packed into his movies, especially this one, which runs just 84 minutes. No joke is overplayed and no subplot to weigh you down. He also has a knack for picking great music, getting a groovy original score here from Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips.
Mistress America isn't so much about lost dreams or missed opportunities, but about how Tracy and Brooke can make the best of what they have. They might not know how it really feels to want anything, but they certainly learn what it's like to have each other.
Photo courtesy of Fox Searchlight Pictures