Cube Critic, 'Mistress America'
August 28, 2015
Cube Critic Stephanie Curtis joins Jill Riley and Sean McPherson to talk about Mistress America, a new film from director Noah Baumbach (The Squid and the Whale, Frances Ha, Greenberg, While We're Young) that stars Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke. The film also features original music by Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips (Galaxie 500, Luna, Dean and Britta).
Mistress America centers on Tracy (Kirke), a lonely college freshman in New York whose big-city university experience is not living up to her expectations. That changes when Tracy is taken in by her older, soon-to-be stepsister, Brooke (Gerwig), whose adventurous life in New York seems alluring and appealing.
"It's about that time of life, when you're 18 and trying to figure out what kind of adult you want to be, but also when you're an adult and you've really got to move into adulthood," Stephanie says.
"It sounds like a serious drama," Stephanie adds, "but it's a fizzy comedy, it's really, really funny. They get into all kinds of bad situations because of their bad choices, and I really, really loved it.
Stephanie also points out that Mistress America is no chick flick. "It's more like a screwball comedy from the '30s or '40s."
That said, Baumbach and Gerwig, who collaborated on the script, get the characters and the emotions right. "It really felt like it was true to how a teenage girl feels and true to how a woman having a quarter-life crisis would feel," Stephanie says.
Stephanie also has high praise for the soundtrack by Wareham and Phillips, as well as for Wareham's brief cameo in the film.
Click the audio player above to hear the complete review
Mistress America is rated R and is showing at the Landmark Uptown Theatre in Minneapolis.
MPR's Cube Critics, Stephanie Curtis and Euan Kerr, join The Current's Morning Show to talk about films every Friday at 8:30 a.m.