Director: Noah Baumbach
Year Released: 2015
Rating: 2.0
College freshman Tracy (Lola Kirke) finds out her mother is remarrying, so she decides to try to befriend her future step-sister Brooke (Greta Gerwig), going so far as to accompany her on a trip to her ex-boyfriend's house to convince him to fund her restaurant idea. Gerwig is basically playing a variation of her character from Francis Ha, albeit even more narcissistic and delusional (if that's possible), with Kirke's acolyte/critic being the (relatively) grounded one, recognizing Brooke's flaws (and including them in a story) but still following her around obediently. It's oh so very slight - quick cuts to characters making quips - and the final set-piece, inside Seth Barrish's super-modern home, leads to the inevitable dissolution of the friendship between Tracy and Brooke (before, of course, their predictable reunion). Baumbach insists it's a kind of companion piece to While We're Young, but only superficially: Gerwig's character consistently denies her age and chooses to hang around with the "younger crowd"; at the very least, it's quite witty in an inspired-by-Woody-Allen "who are these people?" sort-of way.
