Delayed Reaction: Mistress America

The Pitch: Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach deconstruct the Manic Pixie Dream Girl for 90 minutes.

There isn't a lot of middle-ground with Noah Baumbach's films. People either love them or hate them. And that can change film to film. I was underwhelmed and irritated by The Squid and the Whale yet I found Greenberg and Frances Ha very charming. Maybe it's just Greta Gerwig, because I enjoyed Mistress America the most of all his films that I've seen. Her character in this, Brooke, is a great one. She's completely full of shit but is so with such conviction that you want her to be right about some of it. Of course Lola Kirke's Tracy would be instantly drawn to her. On the surface, she is the Manic Pixie Dream Girl: a free spirit who lives for the moment and is always looking for a good time. Here's the thing. The Manic Pixie Dream Girl is kind of a drag in real life. "Free spirited" becomes "irresponsible". "Lost in her own head" becomes "inconsiderate". Tracy realizes this over the course of the movie.

I love the extended sequence in Mamie-Claire and Dylan's house. It goes on way too long. It's filled with shaggy dog storylines that go nowhere, like the pregnant neighbor waiting for a ride or the stuff with the jealous girlfriend of the boy Tracy thinks she likes. It's not all building to one big "come to god" moment either. The events escalate and de-escalated several times. The conflicts evolve and change in real time. Heather Lind does terrific work as Mamie-Claire, who has been through this with Brooke before. She's annoyed and fed up with Brooke immediately, but gets broken down by her charms over time. You know that this has happened many, many times before with all of Brooke's oldest friends.

The movie isn't perfect. Some of the shagginess is probably could be trimmed down. The ending tries to tie things in too neat a bow. It relies of plot convenience if not outright contrivance a little too often. Overall though, I was pleased by this. It has reinvigorated me to track down Baumbach's other films or maybe just to find more films with Greta Gerwig. Yeah, more the latter than the former.

Verdict (?): Strongly Recommend