Mistress America (2015)

“Your tragedy is your armor.”

           

            Ever since I saw the trailer for Mistress America I have wanted to see it. I cannot even tell you why I wanted to see because I HATED Greta Gerwig’s last movie I watched Frances Ha. I think I had a hope the story of Mistress America would be less annoying than Frances Ha. I. Was. Wrong.  

            Tracy is a college freshman at Barnard College in New York City. She is an aspiring water who wants to join the school’s elite literary club. She writes a story and does not get in. Her mother is getting remarried and her mother’s fiancé has a daughter named Brooke (Gerwig). One day Tracy messages Brooke to meet up and Brooke takes her soon-to-be step-sister out for a really fun night all around the city. Tracy’s fun night with Brooke has inspired her to write a story based on Brooke.

            Brooke is woman who does not have her life together. She has several different jobs and does not seem settled whatsoever. Brooke has a new venture trying to start her own restaurant with help from her boyfriend.  Her life kind of falls apart when her boyfriend decides to split up with her and she no longer has money for her restaurant. She tries to go to her ex-boyfriend and his wife who Brooke thinks stole her idea for t-shirts and then made a fortune for the backing for her restaurant. That trip goes horribly nuts with Brooke and Tracy ending up in a huge fight and other things happen but Brooke does have a light bulb moment about her life and eventually makes some changes.

            As for Tracy, she does write her story in full based off of Brooke and gets into the literary club. She realizes the club is not all it is cracked up to be and decides to make her own club. After their dust up Brooke disappears and Tracy looks all over the place for her. By the end of the movie Tracy finds Brooke and Brooke is moving on and bettering herself.

            I know my summary of Mistress America is not that great. There is a lot more detail but I did not like the detail. Here is the reason I did not like Mistress America: the character of Brooke drove me insane. I have always been an ambitious person and know what I want from my life. I understand that everyone is different but when I see characters in movies that are adults and immature and do not have their life together and have all this wasted potential I get pissed. Brooke seemed like an immature woman wandering around in life and that made me upset. I hope I did not come off like a snot saying all those things. If you are a person like Brooke or Frances Ha if it is working out for you, you do you and hopefully you are happy.

            Despite my not liking the story or the characters I did think Mistress America was very well acted and very well directed. Greta Gerwig is a great actress and I hope someday to see her in a movie that I like the character she plays. And I will also say that Mistress America is worth watching at least once.