Gerwig & Baumbach

Greenberg

Mistress America

Greetings earthlings! As I emerge from this Barbenheimer fog, where film aficionados and film novices are both constantly providing their unsolicited opinions, I needed to take a moment and try to understand how we got to this point of bizarre culture-consumption. It’s not just that the pandemic gave everyone more time to become an “expert” on things, fully isolate themselves into their cemented standpoints and perspectives, and turn themselves into critics (myself included), it’s that as the world becomes more digitized with artificial expectations, some of us have lost the plot. Movies aren’t necessarily meant to be anything more than enjoyment, but Barbie and Oppenheimer alike are both causing quite a stir nonetheless. I, of all people, am not telling you to remain uncritical and unbiased, I’m just saying that context and room for nuance are both necessary when being critical. In the age of listicles and power rankings and TikTok advice, it can feel like a natural impulse to go into any creative consumption more critically, but we should never lose ourselves in these experiences, and at least try not to lose our ability to have fun. This is all to say, in all of the criticism of film, tv, music, and more these days, so much fun is missing. That’s why this week, I want to go back in time just slightly, and remember a key influence and driver of the entertainment industry: and that’s a good, old fashioned scandal. I’ll never be done giving Greta Gerwig her flowers for making Barbie, but I did want to take some time to explore her and Noah Baumbach’s earlier work, to see how we got to this point. But you can’t talk about this genius creative duo’s rise to popularity without talking about the scandal that bound them together, so let’s begin where their affair and creative partnership began, with Noah Baumbach’s 2010 film Greenberg. In early 2010, Noah Baumbach (an established writer-director darling of male-lead mumblecore) began filming his next project Greenberg, which he wrote alongside his then-wife Jennifer Jason Leigh, who also stars in the film. Baumbach had just seen Greta Gerwig’s film Hannah Takes the Stairs and decided that he must have her unique brand of millennial moxie for the main female protagonist role in Greenberg. The two officially meet on set. Where Baumbach’s wife is also working. Despite what must’ve been the weirdest filming process yet, I randomly kind of enjoyed Greenberg—the film that allegedly made mumblecore mainstream. (I hated writing that just as much as you hated reading it.) Greenberg follows Florence Marr (Gerwig), the assistant of Phillip Greenberg (Chris Messina). When Phillip and his family venture off to Vietnam to go open up a hotel there or something, Phillip’s aloof brother Roger (Ben Stiller) will be staying at their large house in Los Angeles. Roger recently suffered a nervous breakdown, and after being released from the hospital, is told that he’s welcome to call Florence if he needs anything. Florence is your average mid-twenty year old: feeling aimless and uncertain, and at times having meaningless sex, but her work ethic is good and she seems to like working for the Greenbergs. But Roger, with his odd sensitivities, biases, self-hating and insecure tendencies, is anything but average. And when Roger and Florence begin to get to know one another, things really take a turn for the quirky. Florence is kind and open-hearted to Roger, despite his general sense of fatalism and uncontrollable urge to be cringey and off-putting all of the time. Greta played this sweet, naive role with ease—as with every role she’s ever played it was hard to tell where the character ended and the actress began, because she can’t help making her roles seem like real people. Apart from the disturbing knowledge that Jennifer Jason Leigh was actively losing the love of her husband along the filming process, Greenberg was rather enjoyable. The music was good, the cast was unbelievably stacked, the ballet flats and acoustic versions of songs made me nostalgic for 2010, and Ben Stiller was giving a little bit of elderly Chalamet with his tousled curls and defined cheekbones. While plenty of iterations of suburban existential dread can feel pretentious and boring, I was fairly entertained by this movie, and was never quite sure where it would take me next. There were a few ultra-cringey moments that went beyond the realm of funny and tolerable, and some elements of Greta’s character showed how much someone like Woody Allen has influenced Baumbach’s style—particularly when Ben Stiller is being a raging asshole to Greta only for her to say “I’m impressed by you!” Honestly, my only qualms with the Barbie movie are the details and moments that I could just tell Noah had written, but at least nowadays, Greta has slightly more say, and slightly more power than just being Noah’s muse. Greta vehemently rejects the notion that she was ever Baumbach’s muse, but oh, to be a rich director’s muse! To get cast in a mid movie only to have your every talent and charm be the best part of it, and to use this same talent and charm to rise to your own prominence! I, personally, love the sound of that—sans the breaking up of a family but whatareyagonnado. Greenberg premiered in late 2010 to mostly positive reviews, but in November of that year, Noah and Jennifer divorced after 5 years of marriage, and just 7 months after their son was born. (Years later Baumbach would make the film Marriage Story, based off of this…) Suddenly, Noah and Greta are officially official, and by 2012, their first official collaboration Frances Ha debuts. Now, to be very frank, I did not care for Frances Ha. If there is a spectrum to mumblecore’s mundanity, Frances Ha belongs on the end where Jim Jarmusch’s Stranger Than Paradise resides because I found it to be incredibly boring and twee and annoying. Clearly my dislike of this project didn’t scare me off of Gerwig and Baumbach’s films, but it did make me trepidatious to explore any other film that may position Greta as unlikable. But in 2015, Noah and Greta wrote yet another movie with another unlikable female protagonist for Gerwig to embody, in their next film, Mistress America. The reviews for this film are mixed, but male and female critics alike seemed to agree on the fact that Gerwig’s character is off-putting, which intrigued and worried me. Mistress America follows Tracy (Lola Kirke), a college freshman going to school in NYC. Tracy endures the same slew of issues I faced in college: terrible cafeteria food, awkward roommates, awful guidance counselors, the fellow first-years who act like they already understand the lay of the land, pretentious people in class, being rejected from the literary society, and a general sense that she cannot fit in. I was only slightly triggered by the similarities of my experience and Tracy’s, even though I’m pretty sure I uttered some of her exact lines when I was in college like “Ugh I’m so bad at calling people I don’t know.” Struggling to make connections and friends, Tracy’s mom suggests that she reach out 30 year old Brooke (Greta Gerwig), Tracy’s soon-to-be sister once Tracy’s mom marries Brooke’s dad. Tracy reluctantly calls Brooke, and in one night of drinking, deep conversations, going backstage at a concert, drinking some more, and party-hopping, these two almost-sisters seemingly find their missing halves. I braced myself for how Greta would play Brooke, given the fact that so many people hated her character, but much like many female characters I’ve been meant to dislike—I loved her. Typically, even in her role as director, Greta Gerwig can’t help but come across as sweet and friendly and gentle. But Greta stepped into the messy, bold, eccentric character of Brooke with fervor and enthusiasm. Brooke is smart and creative and charismatic and unlike anyone else Tracy has ever met. But Brooke is also a bit of a chaotic mess—with her mysteriously missing Greek boyfriend, her brazenly blunt and direct personality, her profound sense of competitiveness, and her loose plans to open a restaurant in the city. Tracy isn’t bothered by this toxicity, though, she’s positively charmed and even inspired by it. Tracy then begins to document everything she learns about Brooke—every bizarre emotional outburst, every tumultuous relationship she engages in, every detail of her real identity and life—all written down in an essay that Tracy plans to resubmit to the literary society. This moment, and a few others, informs the audience that however scatter-brained and rude Brooke can be, Tracy isn’t exactly perfect, either. But like Brooke, Tracy is figuring out who she is, and because of her proximity to this new, exciting figure, Tracy’s life becomes exciting, too. Tracy becomes more confident, and her infatuation with Brooke was relatable for any woman or person who’s engaged in a fun but toxically-codependent friendship. I can see why critics found both of these protagonists to be off-putting, and how, in 2015 especially, audiences might not have been ready for unlikable female characters. But I found both of these women, Brooke especially, to be incredibly interesting—which is not something that I can say about every unlikable male character. I, shockingly, really enjoyed Mistress America! Not despite its bizarre characterizations, but because of them! If the content released in the last five years or so has taught us anything, it’s that the story of the “girlboss” is pretty much outdated, but the story of the “girlfailure” is endlessly fascinating. Greta’s portrayal of this woman who is floundering, suffers from arrested development, and clearly needs a friend wasn’t just entertaining, it was compassionate. And given how one-dimensional her character was in Greenberg, it was refreshing to see Gerwig in Mistress America, playing a crazy (but not unlovable) bitch! This movie is fast-paced and never slows down. Its quippy, clever writing was deliriously fun, and at times I struggled to write down each funny line before the next funny line was said—which is often the sign of a good movie, for this critic. I kept waiting for another shoe to drop, for there to be a moment that betrayed my love and loyalty to these characters, but that never happened. I just had a good time with it, even though the friendship at the center of this story gradually becomes more endangered, I never stopped rooting for these flawed but funny women—Brooke especially. Of course I connected to Tracy’s inability to make friends in college, but what hit me like a ton of bricks was my connection to Brooke, and her increasing awareness that she’s growing older, and less forgivable. When Brooke is asked what her plan for the evening is and she replies “I’ll probably just end up doing something depressing, but young”, I felt that. Every time I force myself out to a bar I feel this. I feel like the loss of childhood is a concept represented in many stories, but rarely are we shown the loss of the perceived freedom of ones twenties. Women, especially, are expected to accomplish so much before they turn thirty, that our twenties are often wasted worrying about what we haven’t done—and Mistress America captured this sentiment pretty perfectly. Once again, all influence of Noah Baumbach and his grubby, male perspective could be felt in this movie, and were my least favorite parts. But with Greta on board, this film’s tricky perspective came through, the comedic sensibility solidified, and as a whole the film ended up really wonderful. If there is such a thing as “millennial mumblecore” Mistress America is the best example of it, and Greta Gerwig is the best storyteller for it. It’s not easy to write complex characters who you also want to root for, but randomly enough, these two random movies accomplished that. So if you’re a film scholar like me, or a lover of Hollywood scandals like me, these films are two important landmarks in the pantheon of this iconic couple’s resume, and should definitely be watched. And if you’re thinking that Greta is just as unforgivable for Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh’s divorce, just remember that Noah Baumbach not only self-indulgently made a movie about this divorce, but he actually wrote a scene where his fictional self tells his ex wife’s fictional self: “You shouldn’t be upset that I fucked her, you should be upset that I had a laugh with her.” … So yeah. You can feel conflicted about Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig for sure, but all I’m saying is, don’t blame the muse!