Review: ‘Mistress America’ charms with slick dialogue
The first year of college is an anxious time for anybody. The predictable framework of high school falls away, and a teenager who lived with her parents is suddenly a free-range semi-adult with her own dorm room and infinite decisions to make about who she will become.
Actress Lola Kirke embodies this anxiety and vulnerability in “Mistress America,” a sharply written exploration of identity and friendship by Brooklyn-born and raised director Noah Baumbach and actress Greta Gerwig in their third cinematic collaboration.
With its crackling, stylized dialogue, “Mistress America” almost should have been a play. Its deliberately crafted phrases stick around long after the credits roll; like, “He’s one of those people that I hate, except that I’m in love with him” and “Her beauty was that rare kind that made you want to look more like yourself and not like her.”