Featuring actors and
directors that had a hand in Marriage Story, Ladybird and Mozart in the Jungle,
this movie fits well into this little cultural slot of urbane, educated,
restless, slightly unhappy creative people in modern America.
“I'm pretty sure college is supposed to be more fun than I'm having,” says central character Tracy, played by the luminous
Lola Kirke from Mozart in the Jungle. This is Tracy’s central experience; she
has come to New York to go to university and expected it to be ground breaking
and magical. Instead it is isolating, scary and full of pretentiousness.
Everything changes when she
meets Brooke (played by Little Women director Greta Gerwig), who is about to
become her step-sister. Brooke is older, ambitious, self-invented, untethered
by convention and routine. She says things like; “he’s one of those people that
I hate, except that I am in love with him.” Tracy and Brooke’s conversations
are full of the following kind of exchanges….
Brooke: “I’m an auto-didact,
do you know what that means?”
Tracy: “Yes”.
Brooke: “That word is one of
the things I self-taught myself.”
At times the quirkiness
overwhelms the cleverness, yet the wit, sharpness and sheer effortless brilliance of the dialogue
are undeniable.
Tracy is the central character and a kind of narrator, but it is Brooke (Greta Gerwig) who is by turns horrible, hilarious and profound, and who gets all the best lines.
Brooke: "I think I'm sick and I don't know if my ailment has a name. It's just me sitting and staring at the Internet or the television, interspersed with trying not to do that, then lying about what I've been doing. And I will get so excited about something that the excitement overwhelms me. And I can't sleep or do anything and I just am in love with everything, but can't figure out how to make myself work in the world."
Tracy is the central character and a kind of narrator, but it is Brooke (Greta Gerwig) who is by turns horrible, hilarious and profound, and who gets all the best lines.
Brooke: "I think I'm sick and I don't know if my ailment has a name. It's just me sitting and staring at the Internet or the television, interspersed with trying not to do that, then lying about what I've been doing. And I will get so excited about something that the excitement overwhelms me. And I can't sleep or do anything and I just am in love with everything, but can't figure out how to make myself work in the world."
It also features
the weird, haunting, beautiful Souvenir, a song by Orchestral Manoeuvres in the
Dark, resurrected from the depths of the Eighties and given new life as a backdrop
to a tale of Gen Z kids from the teens. Somehow, it fits perfectly.
In these days when the
streets of New York are largely empty, it is moving and nostalgic to see the
city full of people, buzzing, the bars heaving.
Despite the occasional lapse
into hipster excess, this is an unexpected, unacknowledged delight. A sweet
slice of escapism and romance, for those in need of it.
