The Upcoming
  • Cinema & Tv
    • Movie reviews
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Sundance London
      • Cannes
      • Locarno
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Show reviews
  • Music
    • Live music
  • Food & Drinks
    • News & Features
    • Restaurant & bar reviews
    • Interviews & Recipes
  • Theatre
  • Art
  • Travel & Lifestyle
  • Literature
  • Fashion & Beauty
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Support us
    • Contact us
  • Competitions
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • RSS

CultureMovie reviews

Mistress America

Mistress America | Movie review
13 August 2015
Gioia Kennedy
Avatar
Gioia Kennedy
13 August 2015

Movie and show review

Gioia Kennedy

Mistress America

★★★★★

Release date

14th August 2015

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

FacebookWebsite

It was hard to believe Noah Baumbach was at it again with Mistress America, just a few months after the release of While We’re Young. The two are similar in that they deal with modern hardships in a comedic fashion. Both films accurately capture current upper-middle-class struggles, which Baumbach never fails to poke fun at.

Tracy (Lola Kirke) has just been shipped off to college in NYC. She aspires to be a writer and, when she fails to gain acceptance into the literary society of her choice, becomes friends with a fellow misfit, Tony (Mathew Shear). A romance does not ensue because, being first-year undergraduate, Tracy has obstacles of her own to overcome.

Baumbach accurately depicts the whirlwind insanity that is student life – doing so much but never enough whilst witnessing minor interactions that jab at your major underlying loneliness. It’s these subtleties that Baumbach always gets right. After a conversation with her mother expressing her minor discontent, in which Tracy exclaims a hardtruth that “no one makes friends in classes”, she does take some advice and calls her soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Greta Gerwig).

From the moment that Brooke thrusts Tracy into her life, immediately nicknaming her “baby Tracy” and parading her around, the film enters a different kind of whirlwind – and a much more fun one. Although Tracy hadn’t found the perfect place in university, Brooke creates space for her in her life. The climax of the story reaches a peak of absurdity, sometimes getting tiresome, but eventually pulling back to convey a message. Baumbach visits old themes that were the basis of his more serious films, such as Margot at the Wedding, when Tracy writes a short story with Brooke as her muse. Is it fair for artists, writers, and filmmakers to base their art off of reality? It’s hard to define how much of art is a reduction or caricature, or whether muses should have a say in what the artist creates.

When Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig get together they create something impossibly wonderful; the last movie the two worked on together, Frances Ha, is a modern masterpiece. Mistress America thrived in places that While We’re Young fell flat. It was believably absurd and at times painfully honest. It’s a comedy but it also explores harder, meta issues of artistry and the complexity of creativity. Anything from this duo is a must-see.

★★★★★

Gioia Kennedy

Mistress America is released nationwide on 14th August 2015.

Watch the trailer for Mistress America here:

Please accept YouTube cookies to play this video. By accepting you will be accessing content from YouTube, a service provided by an external third party.

YouTube privacy policy

If you accept this notice, your choice will be saved and the page will refresh.

Related ItemsLola KirkeMathew ShearNoah Baumbachreview

More in Movie reviews

Eiffel

★★★★★
Diletta Lobuono
Read More

Nope

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

Fadia’s Tree

Marissa Khaos
Read More

Prey

★★★★★
Selina Sondermann
Read More

What Josiah Saw

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Luck

★★★★★
Guy Lambert
Read More

Maisie

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Bullet Train

★★★★★
Matthew McMillan
Read More

Thirteen Lives

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

Gioia Kennedy

Mistress America

★★★★★

Release date

14th August 2015

Certificate

UPG121518 title=

Links

FacebookWebsite

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Midsummer Mechanicals at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • “Theatre is totally unique… there’s simply nothing else quite like it”: An interview with Sir Howard Panter as the new cast of Jersey Boys opens at Trafalgar Theatre
    Theatre
  • Nope
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • The Sandman
    ★★★★★
    netflix
  • South Facing Festival: Richard Ashcroft and his band were on impressive form from start to finish
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Ed Fringe 2022: Hungry
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Eiffel
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Five Days at Memorial
    ★★★★★
    apple
  • Nope
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • South Facing Festival: Richard Ashcroft and his band were on impressive form from start to finish
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Nope
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Five Days at Memorial
    ★★★★★
    apple
  • South Facing Festival: Richard Ashcroft and his band were on impressive form from start to finish
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Jersey Boys bring on a new cast at Trafalgar Theatre
    Theatre
  • Prey
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Support us
  • What, when, why
With the support from:
International driving license

Copyright © 2011-2020 FL Media

Wilderness Festival 2015 | Review
Peter Broderick at St Giles-in-the-Fields | Live review