I'm going to do it anyway. Let's call these comments lazy and unfair. I don't care because Mistress America annoyed the fuck out of me. I fell for Gerwig's turn in Frances Ha, both in her lead performance and her work on the screenplay, but here her character just irritates. She's again taking on the mantle of New York sophisticate-lite but this time around, as idea-imparter-millenial-muse Brooke, she's thin on the ground and light on the pathos. Frances had her dorky optimism to endear her to the audience, Brook tries to skate by on enthusiastic entitlement.
Lola Kirke, as Brooke's soon to be step-sister, Tracy, gives a more engaging performance and it is through her and her literary ambitions that we get to know Brooke. Her short story, which gives the film its name, lays bare her anti-muse with cold affection. She opens Brooke's character up in a way that Gerwig struggles to on her own. The summation is honest though, so there's still the unlikeability thing to come to grips with.
Baumbach and Gerwig go hard at the "America's girl on the side" angle. Brooke is all "me, me, me" passed off as societal compassion. I'm sure they weren't wanting Brooke's frustrating approach to realising the American dream to endear her to everyone (or anyone). I get that. But they must have been wanting the trade-off (Brooke's embodiment of the capricious mania of America's strike-it-rich-with-a-single-idea mentality) to be a a more solid swap. That wasn't the case for me. As I said, it was all rather irritating.
But I'll put it out there: I laughed. And though some of this laughter was directed at the film, there were also a good many times that it carried me along. On balance, I still enjoyed Mistress America but I've no desire to return. I'd happily hang with Frances, she had heart. This one, not so much.
★★★
Trailer:
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