Mistress America

Tracy has just started college in New York and belongs nowhere; the literary society will not have her and nobody cares what she writes. Her mother is remarrying, which will give her a stepsister: Brooke, who lives in a loft in Times Square, runs fifteen projects at once and finishes none of them. Tracy is dazzled and quietly turns her into a story. When Brooke finds out, the friendship comes apart. Noah Baumbach directed and wrote it with Greta Gerwig, who plays Brooke. Lola Kirke plays Tracy. It was the second script the two wrote together. The rhythm deliberately reaches back to thirties screwball: the dialogue overlaps, scenes run on without cutting away, and most of the second half takes place in one house with a crowded cast. Brooke's world is Times Square itself, and the shot of Gerwig coming down the red steps by the TKTS booths became the film's signature. It screened at Sundance and opened in August 2015. Who it is for: viewers who like fast-talking city comedy and the Gerwig and Baumbach partnership. Who it is not for: anyone put off by the privilege the characters move in. The film occupies a narrow slice of New York and nothing outside it appears.