Quartile rating: 7/10 · 1 rating
A college freshman cures her disappointment and loneliness by allowing herself to be pulled into the wacky schemes of her future stepsister.
Baumbach and Gerwig's screwball-inflected indie comedy crackles with a distinctive verbal energy and a strikingly theatrical third-act set piece that feel wholly singular. Greta Gerwig's Brooke is a one-of-a-kind comic creation — manic, self-mythologizing, and oddly poignant. The film's novelty is genuinely high: its rapid-fire dialogue and character conception recall Hawks-era screwball filtered through contemporary New York neurosis in a way no other film quite replicates. The plot is serviceable but thin, functioning mostly as scaffolding for character and riff. The ending deflates somewhat, resolving the tensions too neatly while losing some of the kinetic energy. Cinematography is competent and clean but not especially expressive.