Review of Mistress America (2015) by Gary G — 21 Sep 2015

Those who loved 2013's Frances Ha will clamor to this latest collaboration between writer-director Noah Baumbach and star and co-writer Greta Gerwig that is screwball brilliance laced with smarts, wit and sexiness. That would be Mistress America, where Gerwig stars as Brooke, a Manhattan design dynamo equally skilled in aerobics, restaurants and anything else she can absorb with her manic energy. Her latest distraction is Tracy (Lola Kirke), a freshman at Barnard whose mother is getting ready to marry Brooke's father. It's a disaster in waiting, but not before Brooke and Tracy exploit one another and end up at the Connecticut home of Brooke's former fiancee, a convergence of all the characters in slammed doors and lots of shouting.

Baumbach (he of the gems The Squid and The Whale, Margot At The Wedding, Greenberg and While We're Young) is having a ball, packing bites and stings into every line, and Gerwig is his comic match in acting, especially in her byplay with Kirke (Gone Girl). This one hits hard.