Noah Baumbach
Mistress America

THE REVIEW

Here's the new film by the prolific Noah Baumbach. A spectacular screenwriter, in addition to his films, he has also written superb things for Wes Anderson like Fantastic Mr. Fox. This Mistress America confirms Baumbach's talent in writing, but overall it stays quite distant from the stunning Frances Ha (2012) and doesn't even match up to While We're Young (2014).

The generational theme continues to be explored, but all in all, it doesn't manage to add much either to the comparison between more or less distant generations, or to the portrayal of today's youth. The comparison this time concerns a thirty-year-old woman (Brooke) and an eighteen-year-old one (Tracy); therefore, it doesn't have the implications of the previous film because the years of difference are only a dozen ("We are almost the same age"). The fresco on the youth world pleasantly continues, but it is decidedly less in-depth than usual because the individual portrait (of Tracy, for example) is penalized in terms of space by a gallery of funny but very caricatured characters.

It almost seems like a film to regroup and clarify ideas, a work of consolidation to confirm to himself that he knows how to do "that thing". And it is undeniable that Noah is definitely skilled with brilliant comedy, with perfectly imperfect characters, with frenetic but surgically precise dialogues in delivering the topics. A good work, a positive exercise in style, which however fails to replicate the best outcomes of the past. Sometimes the intertwining of drama and irony results a bit too dense, almost schizophrenic in continually juxtaposing existential insights and smart laughs.

The characters are certainly interesting, with well-defined and non-trivial flaws, but all in all, they are less fresh than usual and somewhat sacrificed, especially in the second half, to instead give space to a collective picture that is certainly enjoyable, fun, and successful, but certainly less memorable than the portraits Baumbach had accustomed us to. The characterization not so effective emerges clearly in the end, when ideas are lacking and it seems that the two protagonists are summing up a bit randomly, almost like in a nonsensical farce. The important thing is to never stop talking.

It remains undeniable the ability to narrate failures lightly, as necessary stages of life. Baumbach's protagonists face a lot of obstacles but never lose heart: it never slips into a melodrama, there’s always a vein of ironic lightness a priori or an almost philosophical reading, which is then one of the great messages of the director: even by failing, one grows, the beauty of life is not given by perfection. Failing can be the spur to start over, succeeding in something can instead make us realize we want something else.

Greta Gerwig suits the egocentric and quirky character of Brooke, but her performance is not particularly exciting. Lola Kirke, on the other hand, is delightful, expressing with great tenderness all the doubts and emotions of the young Tracy. The cast is very good and well selected. The style is not as refined as in Frances Ha, but there are still some tricks with shots: almost rhythmic alternations or Allenean dialogues with characters entering and exiting the frame. The photography, which gives a very nineties patina, is magnificent.