Mistress America (Noah Baumbach)

[dreamdead]

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Gerwig, Baumbach. Stuff happens. New York.

[dreamdead]

This is enjoyable—it’s not on the same level as Andrew Bujalski’s Results, which dwelled on character interiority more closely while covering similar themes—but it’s got a fun rapport throughout. If anything, the film struggles to justify why strangers should judge an aspiring writer for trying to get her “subject” to experience success so that she (i.e. the writer) can have more material to draw on. The level of judgment cast against Kirke seems overblown when one considers the actual plot.

Otherwise, this is the kind of hangout film that’s interesting for the supporting work, where one-off characters like the downstairs apartment-goer or the pregnant Asian woman get just enough to do that they become entertaining in their own right. I suspect that Stillman’s Damsels in Distress is still more interesting fare that covers this terrain as well.

[Pop Trash]

I suspect that Stillman’s Damsels in Distress is still more interesting fare that covers this terrain as well.

YES! I thought the exact same thing.

[baby doll]

I thought this was pretty delightful, and certainly the fastest Baumbach movie I've seen. In the first half, it seemed like he was trying to do Jules et Jim with the film racing through a series of concise scenes, but the second half is pure screwball comedy. If I have a small complaint about the movie, it's that it's so funny and entertaining that the pain of failure never really registers.

[baby doll]

If anything, the film struggles to justify why strangers should judge an aspiring writer for trying to get her “subject” to experience success so that she (i.e. the writer) can have more material to draw on. The level of judgment cast against Kirke seems overblown when one considers the actual plot.I don't think she was trying to get her to experience success so much as waiting for her to inevitably fail (hence, her concern that she might be one of those people who doesn't have a conscience).

[Melville]

I thought this was easily the weakest Baumbach movie I've seen. The cartoonish confrontation/takedown at the end seemed to drop in from another, much worse movie.