Welcome back Noah Baumbach. After the slight misfire of While We’re Young, which fizzed for an hour before losing pace and petering out, his new film is a complete bullseye. All of his usual tics are present and correct, but infused with a new energy and perfect pacing which works perfectly. It’s a complete treat from start to finish, maybe because it sees him working again with his real-life partner Gerwig, who puts in a performance of fantastic range and depth.
It’s Lola Kirke who takes the lead though, playing Tracy, a student newly arrived in New York City and finding it very lonely. Her room-mate is sullen, her fellow English students are poseurs, her lecturers no help, and as she has no money she is cannot run with the moneyed students. She also clearly has talent as a short story writer.
Luckily her mum announces she is getting remarried and her husband to be has a daughter, Brooke (Gerwig) who lives in Times Square. They hook up, and Tracy finds the women she thinks she wants to be. Brooke is effervescent, kooky, full of ideas, and fun to be with. She has a cool flat, plays vinyl records, dances with a band, has flings even though she has a boyfriend. To Tracy she seems like a breath of fresh air, but before long the cracks begin to show. Brooke has had her one big idea stolen by her best friend, who has also stolen her former boyfriend. So together they go to the country to sort it out, along with Tracy’s student pal who she has a crush on and his jealous girlfriend.
What is so impressive here is the film takes on the form of a screwball comedy, especially in the country house scene in which new characters are introduced, all interacting with each other at lightning speed with witty one liners, but it never loses touch with the seriousness of it all. Gerwig’s Brooke is a complete triumph, a mass of energy but with a dark heart, dreadfully insecure, worried about her future and realising her life is trickling away into nothing. When she gets the chance to pitch her idea for a business venture she chokes, and only Tracy bothers to help her out. Her relationship with Tracy is brilliantly realised, two “sisters” who slowly realise they have very little in common and one, inevitably, which will end in betrayal.
Kirke is the equal of Gerwig, a desperately lonely girl, almost incapable of empathising with anyone, talented but begrudging of praise, and dressed in a dowdy student uniform of baggy jumper and puffa jacket. One throwaway line encapsulates the film perfectly, when a minor character refers to Tracy as “the young one”, which Gerwig responds to with outrage. It’s funny and heartbreaking at the same time, much like the film as a whole.
Overall verdict: Cracking indie treat with a heart, terrific performances and beautifully written. Ultimately it’s about the fear of ageing and not leaving a legacy. Fantastic.
Reviewer: Mike Martin