Mistress America review

Tracy Fishko (Lola Kirke) has just started college in New York but, like many who are parted from the family nest for the first time, she finds herself feeling lonely and awkward around her new peers. On top of this she has come to terms with her mother’s engagement to a man she’s met online. At her mother’s suggestion, Tracy gets in touch with her stepsister-to-be, Brooke Cardanis (Greta Gerwig.) Brooke is a glamorous socialite with a 

variety of interests (she runs a spinning class, tutors maths and is 'very into social media') but little direction in her life.

Tracy immediately finds herself enchanted by Brooke and, despite their twelve year age gap, the pair quickly become inseparable.  Not only does she become a friend but Brooke also becomes an unwitting muse to Tracy, who is a writing student, and it isn’t long before Tracy is writing a story whose central character is based upon her. Throw in Brooke’s plans to open a restaurant, despite having very little money, and you have all the ingredients for an excellent farce.

Mistress America is director Noah Baumbach’s third film with Greta Gerwig and it is the second they have co-written together, the first being Frances Ha (2012). With this film, however, we get the sense that the creative duo has really found their rhythm: its themes, friendship, becoming an adult, are more fully realised than those in Frances Ha and its characters more fully fleshed out.

As Brooke, Gerwig shines in a role that is ideally suited to her. The full breadth of her acting talents is displayed as she portrays a person who frequently shifts from being energetic and confident to desperately insecure and frustrated. It is the complexity that Gerwig brings to the role that ensures Brooke comes across as a fully rounded human being and not just a caricature of New York’s social elite.

Lola Kirke also turns in a strong performance as Tracy. She approaches the role with an earnestness that makes her character endearing even when she’s doing things that might otherwise force us to dislike her. Kirke is only 24 and if her performance in this is anything to go by she is certainly someone to watch out for in the future.

Baumbach and Gerwig’s script may meander a little but this seems to be the point in a film that is about friendship and finding your way in the world. It is funny, dramatic, touching, but never boring.