Gerwig and Baumbach fashion an interesting bunch of edgy characters that are in a state of constant formation, with a defined core to them.

| Aug 16, 2023

I realize that watching a 20-something hipster have a quarter life meltdown for two hours might be entertaining for some, but I still cannot get into it.

| Original Score: D | Sep 1, 2017

This is [Noah] Baumbach on a new level, thanks to [Greta] Gerwig-bless this woman-who keeps her comedic charm throughout even the strangest territories.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Feb 27, 2017

[In the second half,] Baumbach is able to turn his loving gaze away from Gerwig long enough to let his actors shine and allow us to enjoy all the mayhem.

| Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 12, 2016

It's got a fast pace and screwball spirit, and is the closest thing Baumbach's done to pure comedy since his peerless debut picture 'Kicking and Screaming.' But there's a lot more going on here than just laughs.

| May 30, 2016

[Gerwig's] performance as Brooke Cardinas, the anti-heroine of Noah Baumbach's Mistress America, is a highly calculated, artificial comic turn.

| Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 30, 2015

A deliciously funny yet poignant study of an impressionable 19-year-old and the older woman she takes as a role model.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Oct 30, 2015

Noah Baumbach is one of those successful directors who's obsessed with failure.

| Oct 23, 2015

The difference between a good screwball comedy and a great one is that you care about the screwballs, and in that sense, Mistress America is great indeed.

| Oct 14, 2015

"Mistress America" is comedy at its best - thoughtful and real while consistently riotous.

| Original Score: A | Aug 28, 2015

Mistress America is not a new comic-book movie, although Greta Gerwig, who stars, has a kind of stand-tall, hands-on-hips superhero vibe about her.

| Original Score: 4/4 | Aug 27, 2015

Mistress America is maybe Baumbach's most probing consideration of the writer's process and development, a continuing point of interest in his filmography, from Kicking and Screaming to The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding.

| Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 27, 2015

A winning, slightly screwball investigation of the fraught relationship between writer and subject, or maybe artist and muse, or maybe both.

| Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 27, 2015

Gerwig pulls off an incredible trick: Somehow, she makes an inherently unlikable character, likable. It's one of the year's most intriguing and unmissable performances, and it confirms that Gerwig is among the brightest talents on the cinema scene.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 27, 2015

Astute, bittersweet, funny, and needed a better ending.

| Original Score: 3/4 | Aug 26, 2015

With Gerwig, you worry that she seems to be winging it -- until you realize that she also knows how to fly.

| Aug 21, 2015

Zippy, sharp and monstrously smart, Mistress America is not only Noah Baumbach's funniest film, but the best comedy of the year.

| Aug 21, 2015

Gerwig is a magnetic actress, but it feels as if she's overplaying it here. Even in Brooke's best moments, she's not all that charming or interesting.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Aug 20, 2015

Various deceptions and double-crosses ensue, the dialogue paced so fast in an effort to pump up the comedy that it would exhaust Howard Hawks.

| Aug 20, 2015

It is a comedy with barbs and an unlikely undercurrent of pathos.

| Original Score: 4/5 | Aug 20, 2015