Mistress America
Fox Searchlight Pictures | Release Date: August 14, 2015 CRITIC SCORE DISTRIBUTION
75
METASCORE
Generally favorable reviews based on 41 Critic Reviews
Positive:
34
Mixed:
5
Negative:
2
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Critic Reviews

Critic scorePublicationBy date
100
Philadelphia InquirerSteven ReaAug 27, 2015
Although Mistress America is very much a New York movie, full of references to couture, pop culture, boutique hotels (to Antigone and Faulkner, too), its comic centerpiece is a brazen assault on a country compound. Read full review
100
Washington PostAnn HornadayAug 20, 2015
Even at its most daft and infectiously ditzy, Mistress America is a sharp, aware and surpassingly kind portrait of the agony and ecstasy of becoming yourself. Read full review
100
Time OutDavid EhrlichFeb 1, 2015
Mistress America steamrolls through its mesmerizingly dense running time with such joyous violence that its themes only bubble up to the surface in retrospect, the heart of the movie identified like the dental records of a body that’s been burned beyond all recognition. Read full review
91
Tampa Bay TimesSteve PersallSep 1, 2015
Mistress America is certainly funnier and sunnier than While We're Young, mostly thanks to Gerwig, America's dizzy, dazzling new girl on the side. Read full review
91
Portland OregonianJeff BakerAug 27, 2015
Mistress America is a different kind of channeling, straight through the screwball comedies of the 1980s, "After Hours" and "Something Wild," back to "Bringing Up Baby," where Katharine Hepburn sang "I Can't Give You Anything But Love" to a leopard while Cary Grant looked for the last bone (the intercostal clavicle) for his Brontosaurus skeleton. Read full review
91
HitfixGregory EllwoodFeb 1, 2015
Baumbach has cast a wonderfully talented group of up-and-coming actors around Gerwig and Kirke, but it's the screenplay and the leads' incredible chemistry that makes it all so entertaining. There are so many one-liners that you miss because the previous line of dialogue is just as smart and laugh-inducing. Read full review
90
TheWrapAlonso DuraldeAug 17, 2015
What makes Mistress America so lovely — and so of a piece with “Frances Ha,” my favorite film of 2013 — is its balance of compassion and scrutiny: Baumbach and Gerwig don’t let these characters get away with their shortcomings, but neither does the film condemn these people or present them as irredeemable. Read full review
90
The New York TimesStephen HoldenAug 13, 2015
Far from romanticizing creativity and the artistic process, Mr. Baumbach’s films portray the world of painters, filmmakers and literati as an overcrowded, amoral jungle of viperish entitled narcissists stealing from one another for fame and profit. Read full review
90
Wall Street JournalJoe MorgensternAug 13, 2015
Ms. Gerwig’s performance is a comic diamond, and not in the rough. Her timing is flawless, her delivery is droll. The character she has created — from a remarkably smart and supple script, plus her own unerring instincts — may have spiritual connections with Cate Blanchett’s delusional Jasmine or Diane Keaton’s blissed-out Annie Hall (Brooke solemnly and absurdly consults a spirit medium). Read full review
90
VarietyScott FoundasFeb 1, 2015
If nothing else, Mistress America confirms Gerwig as one of the great, fearless screen comediennes of her generation — a tall, loose-limbed whirligig who careers through scenes with the beatific ditziness of a Carole Lombard or Judy Holliday. Read full review
88
Miami HeraldConnie OgleSep 3, 2015
Gerwig, not surprisingly, is a marvel: mercurial, thin-skinned, haughty, desperate, funny, warm, a magnetic presence who mesmerizes the audience in the same way she attracts Tracy. Read full review
83
IndieWireEric KohnFeb 1, 2015
For all the energy of Gerwig and Kirke's shared chemistry and the lively dialogue that compliments it, the story of Mistress America never keeps pace, ultimately sagging into formula to the detriment of the potential displayed by its compelling protagonists. Read full review
83
The PlaylistRodrigo PerezFeb 1, 2015
Baumbach’s sharp examinations of the limitations of the callow arrogance of youth and the fatuous nature of egocentricity are pointed and riotously enjoyable. Read full review
80
Arizona RepublicBarbara VanDenburghAug 20, 2015
It would be unbearable if it weren’t so completely self-aware. Read full review
80
The New YorkerAnthony LaneAug 17, 2015
While Woody Allen’s recent films have grown ever more hermetic in their perplexity, Baumbach is becoming as prolific, and as quick on the comic draw, as the Allen of yore. Will historians of humor look back on this movie, perhaps, and mark it as the point at which the torch was passed? Read full review
80
Screen DailyTim GriersonAug 13, 2015
This latest collaboration with star and co-writer Greta Gerwig radiates indomitable wit. And Gerwig is a hoot as a woman whose unflappable, unearned confidence lands somewhere between inspiring and horrifying. Read full review
80
New York Daily NewsJoe NeumaierAug 13, 2015
Full of smarts, sly insight and New York personality. As a feather in its jaunty hat, the movie also reinvigorates the art of screwball comedy. Read full review
80
CineVueJamie NeishAug 13, 2015
Mistress America is, despite it's wobbles and preference for humour over depth, a delightful diversion from Baumbach's typically weighty output and a star-show for the pair of performers at its centre. Read full review
80
EmpireIan FreerAug 10, 2015
Noah Baumbach’s great run continues. Sharp, fast and witty, it’s old school screwball comedy with a cool modern twist. And Greta Gerwig is a bona fide genius. Read full review
80
The GuardianJordan HoffmanFeb 1, 2015
Mistress America eventually travels down roads of broken trust and acceptance of reality, but please don’t let those heavy themes suggest this movie is anything other than pure delight. The primacy of the joke rules the day. Read full review
78
Austin ChronicleKimberley JonesAug 26, 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." Read full review
75
St. Louis Post-DispatchCalvin WilsonAug 27, 2015
Mistress America doesn’t quite achieve the magic of “Frances Ha.” But it’s a fresh take on the comic possibilities of friendship among the young. Read full review
75
Boston GlobeTy BurrAug 20, 2015
What it feels like, mostly, is a Whit Stillman movie made by someone other than Whit Stillman. Read full review
75
Chicago TribuneMichael PhillipsAug 20, 2015
Mainly it's about fast and brittle talk, a lot of it peachy. The dialogue has one ear on the screwball '30s, the other on the way people actually speak when their minds are racing faster than their lives can carry them. Read full review
75
RogerEbert.comMatt Zoller SeitzAug 14, 2015
A very funny and observant movie, albeit squirm-inducing, with endlessly quotable dialogue. Read full review
75
Rolling StonePeter TraversAug 13, 2015
Gerwig is the mistress of all things funny and fierce, and her byplay with Kirke (Gone Girl) is killer. You won't know what hit you. Read full review
75
The A.V. ClubA.A. Dowd Aug 12, 2015
This new-new Baumbach isn’t necessarily better than the old-new Baumbach; "Young" felt meatier, with a stronger sense of who its neurotic New Yorkers were. But that film didn’t have Gerwig, bringing warmth, wit, and loopy star power to a character — a human bulldozer of incorrigible extroversion — as fictional as the Big Apple you see only on the big screen. Read full review
75
New York PostSara StewartAug 12, 2015
Mistress America never falters in its case study of a complicated female friendship. Read full review
75
Movie NationRoger MooreAug 12, 2015
Mistress America is Baumbach’s version of a Wes Anderson comedy. Strip away the gaudy colors, snippets of animation and earnest loopiness and you get lots of witty banter, breathlessly delivered by an engaging cast of believable and unbelievably glib characters. Read full review
75
Slant MagazineChristopher GrayAug 12, 2015
Mistress America is both the most concentrated and antic film in Noah Baumbach's unofficial New York trilogy. Read full review
70
SlateSeth StevensonAug 14, 2015
I’ll watch anything this auteur puts out, and I’m not sorry I watched this film — even Baumbach’s misfires have oodles more verve than the personality-free product Hollywood often puts out. But I can’t help but mourn what might have been: a second Baumbach campus classic just as good as his first. Read full review
70
The Hollywood ReporterTodd McCarthyFeb 1, 2015
The film has nothing if not great vitality and an active creative spirit, but it has all been channeled here in a way that comes off as erratic and sometimes ill-judged. Read full review
67
Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerAug 14, 2015
As the pushback to Gerwig’s force field, Kirke may at times be too mousy for her own (or the film’s) good, but her stillnesses are often a welcome respite in this whirligig. Read full review
63
Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperAug 20, 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. Read full review
60
New Orleans Times-PicayuneMike ScottSep 4, 2015
Granted, it's not a movie that will stick with many viewers for any extended time after the closing credits roll. But, sort of like Pop Rocks and Coke, it's enjoyable while it does its fizzy, burbly thing. Read full review
60
The TelegraphTim RobeyAug 13, 2015
What makes Mistress America peculiarly frustrating, though, is what great potential it whips up – for a good half-hour it’s a fast and fluid pleasure, waiting to curdle. Read full review
60
Village VoiceAmy NicholsonAug 11, 2015
Like Brooke's dream business, a café/convenience store/hair salon, Mistress America is a mishmash of ideas — fortunately, Kirke gives a fantastic performance that quietly grounds the film. Read full review
60
New York Magazine (Vulture)David EdelsteinAug 7, 2015
Mistress America is hit-and-miss. It’s not as burdened by blame as other Baumbach films — Gerwig leavens him. But it’s labored. Read full review
50
Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattAug 19, 2015
Noah Baumbach’s latest wisp of privileged New York whimsy vaporizes on arrival. Read full review
38
Charlotte ObserverLawrence ToppmanSep 2, 2015
I think Baumbach and Gerwig mean Brooke to be a life-affirming free spirit who can’t find a place in our mercenary world. Instead, she comes off as selfish, rude, deluded, irresponsible and mean-spirited. Read full review
38
ReelViewsJames BerardinelliAug 27, 2015
From narrative to character development to staging, every frame of Mistress America drips with artifice. It's a playground for unpleasant, self-absorbed characters - an excursion into the lifestyles of people most of us would prefer to bypass. If there's an antonym for self-awareness, it applies to nearly everyone populating this misfire. Read full review
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