Mistress America trailer: watch Greta Gerwig in Noah Baumbach's comedy
|
Version 0 of 1. After the double whammy of Frances Ha and While We’re Young, Noah Baumbach has emerged as the most Woody Allen-y of all the faux Woody Allens attempting to snatch the master’s crown, now that Woody Allen is no longer Woody Allen. Greta Gerwig, the Diane Keaton in the Baumbach operation, wasn’t around for While We’re Young, but she is back, back, back for Mistress America, and has a co-writing credit too. Our man at Sundance, Jordan Hoffman, gave the film a pretty good write-up after its world premiere, but what good are words when you’ve got a trailer? So what can we learn? First, and most obviously, Gerwig is playing someone who is meant to be actively annoying. This is definitely a new direction: in all the roles she’s known for, she plays eccentric, but essentially endearing. Mistress America looks like an exercise in mockery. “Must we document ourselves all the time? Must we?” she declaims, as someone points a cameraphone in her direction. Vain and self-regarding – though not catastrophically so – Gerwig’s character is still pretty funny; even if it all goes a bit Ricky Gervaise at the end, with that ho-ho-I’m-so-awkward rewind bit. Secondly, Baumbach is really not afraid of the Woody Allenisms – or at least, to stick ’em in the trailer. Allen has always been partial to fairground-booth conjuring and crystal ball gazing; Baumbach faithfully goes there too. Thirdly, this is comedy of the hyper-self-aware – “There’s nothing I don’t know about myself; that’s why I can’t do therapy,” says Gerwig brightly. That’s not a gag Allen would have thought up, but it’s certainly the kind of thing Annie Hall 2.0 might bring to the table. So what do you think? Let us know in the comments below. |