Mistress America

**Spoiler Alert**

Director: Noah Baumbach/Greta Gerwig, Lola Kirke, Matthew Shear and Michael Chernus

If you were feeling cheated that director Noah Baumbach had only one film to dislike in 2015, then let me mollify your disappointment. His new release of the insufferable and grating Mistress America quickly follows on the heels of While We're Young; which failed to dazzle audiences back in the early spring. His earlier film, though hardly great, wasn't gag-inducing. His new film, which he co-wrote with his muse and girlfriend Greta Gerwig, pulls out all the stops to be irritating and hellishly unfunny.

The problems with this film could roll out endlessly on an assembly line conveyor belt. Aside from unfunny characters and dialogue, its major flaws are its two female leads: Greta Gerwig and Lola Kirke, who quickly become ear-sores. Gerwig has fast become one of the more annoying actresses in cinema and that's saying a lot. You have to be ferociously industrious to be more of an irritant than Keira Knightley and Cameron Diaz. The last Baumbach/Gerwig character creation: Frances Ha was commensurately annoying.

Baumbach and Gerwig, in conceiving Brooke, were aiming for complexity in creating a character who is supposed to be infuriating, narcissistic, egotistical, ambitious, petty, manic but also redeemably charming. That approach to character design is sound but Baumbach and Gerwig fall well short of their ambition. Gerwig's Brooke not only makes one wish she would shut up for one second and not express all her ridiculous ideas and thoughts, but suffer exile; preferably somewhere in war-torn Syria.

When the film begins, we see a lonely, socially-awkward and romantically-challenged young Barnard student named Tracy (Lola Kirke). It doesn't help that her writing ambitions, which involve having a story accepted by the snootily exclusive school literary journal are temporarily dashed when they refuse one of her submissions. A fellow student, writer and potential boyfriend; Tony (Matthew Shear), recognizes her talent and is quick to deem it superior to his own. Tracy's hopes for a romantic union with Tony are squelched when she discovers he has taken up with a needy, jealous drag named Nicolette (Jasmine Cephas Jones).

Not long after, Tracy receives a phone call from a woman named Brooke, who is to become her step-sister. The two agree to meet in Times Square.

When Tracy first sees her step-sister-to-be, Brooke is making her way down brilliantly red bleachers set up in the Square. The striking red is a visual cue that Brooke is someone colorful and exciting, which she seems to be when she exuberantly descends the steps to meet Tracy.

Tracy learns quickly (as does the audience) that Brooke is an ambitious woman with many irons-in-the-fire. She hopes to open a restaurant with the help of her Greek boyfriend and investor; the sole source of seed money.

Brooke is the kind of person who dominates every conversation with her favorite topic: herself, and never waits for an answer to any question she directs rhetorically to anyone around her. Her mind and mouth motor along at a breakneck pace, which are supposed to be amusing quirks. She tells Tracy; "I'm an autodidact. It means I'm self-taught; it's a word I self-taught myself." This is Baumbachian wit, which means it might elicit a grin from a viewer but hardly a chuckle.

Brooke bears a long-standing grudge against her former friend Mamie-Claire (Heather Lind) who once stole a t-shirt idea of hers before profiting from it. Feeding the grudge is Brooke's former relationship with Mamie-Claire's husband, Dylan (Michael Chernus).

When funding for Brooke's restaurant falls through; she desperately seeks out the help of Dylan, which means driving out to his and Heather's lush home in Connecticut. In tow are Tracy, Tony and Nicolette.

When the group arrives at Dylan's home, they are greeted by Mamie-Claire, who is less than enthused to see Brooke. When Mamie-Claire tells the group Dylan isn't home, Brooke insists they wait. Walking through the swank surroundings, Brooke and company encounter Mamie-Claire's book-group of expectant mother's, who are deep into a discussion of Faulkner.

Before long, Brooke and Mamie-Claire begin airing out their past grievances while the Nicolette-Tony-Tracy triangle reaches some kind of boiling point. This scene seemed quite ear-splitting to me. The constant, inane chatter--mostly generated by Brooke, whose voice becomes unbearably strident, and the glaring absence of witty repartee almost caused me to yell at the screen "will you all just shut the f*** up?" The sequence is hardly improved by the arrival of Dylan, who, to Mamie-Claire's dismay, is not only sympathetic to Brooke's restaurant idea, but titillated by her presence.

Brooke manages to finally make a formal business proposal to Dylan in the form of a monologue she presents to the entire group on a stage-like platform in the living room. Her proposal is supposed to be inspiring, which earns her not only applause but a few tears from the listeners. What the speech actually is is just more of Brooke's asinine verbalizing, which is anything but inspiring.

Dylan, concerned with Brooke's inability to follow through on anything, discourages the restaurant idea but offers to give her money in compensation for Mamie-Claire's t-shirt idea theft. Brooke sadly rejects his offer.

The Connecticut house scene is also supposed to be significant for Tracy, who incurs Brooke's wrath when it comes to light that her current story is entirely based on Brooke. A kind of anti-Tracy tribunal forms in the living room, led by Brooke, who denigrate her for her supposed treachery. The scene is ridiculous. I can't imagine any group of people would care so much about Tracy's ethical breach. It seemed like one more excuse for Baumbach's characters to spew drivel.

Back in New York City, Tracy manages to be accepted by the literary journal but quits them to form her own, in which she enlists Tony, who has also suffered the slings and arrows of the journal staff's snobby exclusiveness.

And of course the unfinished business between Brooke and Tracy is dealt with in a somewhat predictable manner. A final meeting between the two commences just as Brooke is about to leave for L.A.

There have been many movies this year, like summer blockbusters, that I've disliked but otherwise felt indifferent to. Baumbach's film is the only one in recent memory that I've actually DESPISED. If you can stand the company of a loathsome group of people who can't even be troubled to be endearingly loathsome, this is the flick for you.

Director Whit Stillman (Metropolitan, Last Days of Disco) made characters like those found in Baumbach's Mistress America fun to watch and to listen to. They were no less self-absorbed and highly-educated but Stillman's characters were also witty and charming in their own idiosyncratic ways. You might want to strangle them, but they might also make you laugh and if you couldn't always identify with their hyper-educated arrogance, they were nevertheless intriguing and fun company (oddly enough, Gerwig is in Stillman's Damsels in Distress). Baumbach and Gerwig's characters are just plain dull though they behave as if they're fascinating.

Greta Gerwig seems to play the same character in every film, which wouldn't be so bad if the characters were worth our attention. I saw one silly, critical comparison of her character to Holly Golightly. Being that I can't stand Holly Golightly either, this doesn't ring as a compliment. But I can tolerate Holly; Brooke I cannot.

Lola Kirke bears some of the blame for this dreariness with her barely-above-monotone line readings. It's hard to believe a person who seems so intellectually lifeless would be able to write something a school literary journal would consider readable. Kirke's performance could hardly be called acting. I've heard waitresses read off evening specials with more verve and conviction than Kirke expresses her lines. Her character is a drip only Baumbach could love.

I hope Baumbach doesn't take the initiative to release another film before the year's end; that would be horrifying. I've had my fill of his world of self-absorbed jerks, who seem to populate every one of his movies. If Gerwig and Baumbach continue on this track, look out; you may just have a series of one-note characters and excruciatingly unfunny situations and dialogue flooding your local theaters. If I see another of their collaborations, I'll be sure to wear ear-plugs. Maybe their movies play better that way?