Pair sparkle in fresh, energetic ‘America’
“Yours truly!” This is the catchphrase of the effervescent Brooke Cardinas (Greta Gerwig), freelance interior decorator, aspiring restaurateur, sometime singer, part-time tutor and SoulCycle instructor whirling her way through New York City in “Mistress America.” And when Brooke says it, she means it. She’s a font of ideas, but she’s yet to reap the rewards of these fantasies, so claims credit as often as she can. One night she whirls right into the life of lonely Barnard freshman Tracy (Lola Kirke), providing much needed excitement and inspiration for the misfit, who isn’t excelling at the whole having-fun-in-college thing.
Once united, Tracy and Brooke are two peas in a pod, offering each other what they most need: adventure for Tracy in exchange for the undivided, worshipful attention that Brooke so craves. Like in “Frances Ha,” the previous collaboration between Gerwig and her co-writer/director Noah Baumbach, she is constantly in motion, and the ’80s-style synth score nods to films like “Working Girl” as she pounds the streets, constantly on her hustle. However, this diverse multitasking is the type of working girl life that will resonate with many post-recession millennials.
The banter between Tracy and Brooke crackles and snaps, whizzing faster and faster but never lost in the fray. Kirke, as the writerly, mousy Tracy, matches Gerwig beat for beat, a perfect foil to Brooke’s sunny, golden fizz. She is an ideal inspiration for Tracy’s short story, a submission to the pretentious campus literary society. But as we hear Tracy’s story in voice-over, we realize she’s not as besotted with Brooke as she seems – she sees right through the performed success down to the insecurities that Brooke masks, and her assessment is unintentionally cutting.
The restaurant scheme falling apart, Tracy and Brooke set out to right wrongs with Brooke’s former fiance Dylan (Michael Chernus) and nemesis Mamie Claire (Heather Lind), at the behest of a psychic, and in hopes of securing a new investment. With Tracy’s college bud Tony (Michael Shear) and his girlfriend Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas Jones) in tow, they crash a book club at Mamie Claire and Dylan’s Greenwich mansion, and the resulting chaos is a perfectly ridiculous and silly comedy of manners, climaxing in the reveal of Tracy’s not-so-flattering story.
There are moments in “Mistress America” rife with tossed-off nuggets of biting social commentary, such as the book club – comprised almost exclusively of upper-class pregnant women using their Ivy League educations for idle chit-chat. Brooke and Mamie Claire are not all that different, except that Mamie Claire has already achieved what Brooke is striving so hard to get: the ability to do nothing.
Underneath all the head-snapping dialogue and funny sparkle that Gerwig and Kirke bring to their performances, a sly streak of capitalistic ennui underpins “Mistress America.” Both Tracy and Brooke admit that they just can’t figure out how to work – something that is demanded of them as individuals in this society. Their resistance to industry might be seen as a small form of protest, and the title then, is ironic, maybe even progressive. What is for sure, though, is how fresh and new “Mistress America” feels, powered by Gerwig’s nonstop energy.