On Movies: Gerwig and Kirke's 'Mistress America': A story of college, and women's lives
There's nothing grosser than a bunch of girls," Greta Gerwig is saying. "Girls are gross," Lola Kirke concurs, adding that " 'girls are disgusting' is the moral of Mistress America."
There's nothing grosser than a bunch of girls," Greta Gerwig is saying.
"Girls are gross," Lola Kirke concurs, adding that " 'girls are disgusting' is the moral of Mistress America."
It's not really. If there is a moral in the new film from director Noah Baumbach, cowritten by Baumbach and Gerwig, it's more complicated than that. But it is very much a story about women's relationships, their friendships, affinities, rivalries, betrayals. Maybe a little about hygiene, too.
Gerwig stars in Mistress America - open in Los Angeles and New York now, opening in Philadelphia and other markets Aug. 28 - as Brooke Cardinas, a 30-ish New Yorker exploding with ideas but not all that adept at executing them. She's confident and kooky and knows everyone who's anyone, or thinks she does.
Along comes Tracy Fishko (Kirke), a shy 18-year-old suburbanite in her first semester at Barnard. Brooke's dad is about to marry Tracy's mom, which will make them stepsisters - and that's the how and why of their meeting. Tracy affixes herself to Brooke's side, accompanying her to clubs, parties, dinners, and even a consultation with a psychic. Tracy, an aspiring writer, takes notes, literally.
"It's important to Tracy that she comes across to Brooke as cool and smart," Kirke offers. "A lot of people do that - we meet somebody and we love the way that they see us, and so then we try to become that person for them."
Gerwig, 32, and Kirke, 24, dropped into Philadelphia recently to talk up their collaboration - and to do some hearty guffawing. The former broke onto the indie scene in 2007, in the title role of Joe Swanberg's Hannah Takes the Stairs. Baumbach cast Gerwig opposite Ben Stiller in 2010's Greenberg. In 2013, Baumbach and Gerwig released their French New Wave-y gem, Frances Ha; the duo were living together and writing together and continue to do so.
Kirke is the daughter of Simon Kirke, drummer from the Brit rock bands Free and Bad Company; she grew up in New York with her mother, who runs a vintage-clothing store in the West Village, and two sisters, Jemima and Domino. Jemima plays Jessa Johansson on Lena Dunham's HBO series, Girls. Domino is a singer and musician. Lola went to Bard College to study film and acting. She finished in 2012.
Two years later, Gerwig and Baumbach cast her as the Barnard freshman Tracy.
"Shooting at Barnard was like one of the most depressing things I'd ever done," Kirke says with a laugh. "My freshman year . . . was similarly lonely and lost and isolated. And to walk the halls of Barnard freshman dorms, I think the flu broke out the day that we started shooting there, and there was this girl sitting in the hallway reading The Canterbury Tales . . . and I think I stepped just past her, and she vomited everywhere."
Which is how the girls-are-gross conversation comes up.
"College is just so gross," says Gerwig, who did her time at, yes, Barnard. "You'll go into the bathrooms, and there's like a single grape in a shower stall. You're like, 'Did you bring a bunch of grapes in here? What are you guys doing!?' "
Kirke laughs.
"I definitely had a different experience in college than Tracy did," she says of her character. "I went from living in New York City to moving to the middle of nowhere, as far as I was concerned [Annandale-on-Hudson, 100 miles north of New York], and she goes from living in the suburbs to living in this great city. But not finding anything. . . .
"And that's the thing: You want to find the heart of it immediately, and it becomes incredibly lonely when you don't."
The title Mistress America comes from the short story Tracy writes - a story that steals right and left from her experiences with Gerwig's Brooke. Stealing from life to make fiction raises tricky ethical and artistic questions, questions that get batted around with some seriousness in the film.
"I had written Frances Ha with Noah, and that caused a lot of problems in my life," Gerwig says, indicating that some of the characters in the film were recognized by some of the people in her life. A few were not amused.
"I felt horrible about it. And I only write things out of loving someone, so the fact that they would be hurt by it is really troubling to me, because the impulse is the opposite. . . .
"You know, it's a complicated issue. Do you have the right to take down a person's story? Yes. Do people have the right not to be written about? Maybe.
"I'm not sure where I fall on it. But I do know there are people who live in this vivid way that makes you want to get them right. . . . And that's a gift to writers."
Gerwig is about to start work on 20th Century Women, Mike Mills' follow-up to Beginners. Annette Bening and Elle Fanning are in it. Gerwig also has her own script, Lady Bird, which she has a deal to direct.
Kirke, who had the small but pivotal part of the shady motel guest who befriends Rosamund Pike's Amy Dunne in Gone Girl, is returning for a second season of Amazon's Mozart in the Jungle, the sex-drugs-and-classical-music series. She has also just worked opposite Tom Cruise in the Doug Liman-directed drug-smuggling thriller Mena, set for an early 2017 release.
And maybe Gerwig and Kirke will do something else together.
"I'd love for you to play some sort of 1940s something-or-other," Gerwig says to her Mistress America costar, working up some enthrallment. "Not a femme fatale, exactly, but some Double Indemnity kind of thing. You'd look good with those finger waves."
Gerwig listens to herself pitching Kirke.
"Creepy, creepy," Gerwig says, chortling. "I can only get away with that, with speaking that way, because I'm not like some older dude who is macking on her."
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