Review of Mistress America (2015) by Peter F — 15 Jul 2016

Yes, Noah Baumbach is releasing a second film this year, but fortunately it's much more of a delight than the underwhelming While We're Young. That said, it's also somewhat of a companion piece to the former film, as it's also a film about age gaps, diminished expectations, and false conceptions, but has more of an inspired air to it.

Just as Frances Ha took shelter in Woody Allen and the French New Wave, Mistress America is very much Baumbach's modernization of screwball comedies, particularly in the later half of the second act.

Greta Gerwig is great as always (even if she's even more fatuous than ever), and Lola Kirke gives a very mature and nuanced performance that acts as the ideal foil to that of Gerwig's. At 88 minutes, it's a fairly slight film, but it makes the best of its brevity.