Free from the shackles of the ill-fated How I Met Your Dad, Greta Gerwig can go back to doing what she does best: Working with director Noah Baumbach, who directed her in Greenberg and Frances Ha. As with Frances, the two co-wrote Mistress America, which debuted at Sundance and opens next Friday. Lola Kirke (Gone Girl, also sister to Girls’ Jemima Kirke) co-stars as an unhappy college freshman who is jolted out of her lonely existence by her soon-to-be-stepsister (Gerwig).
Although Kirke is our POV character, narrating the first trailer and bringing us into the story, Gerwig is the focus. Playing a variation on her charming, flighty, energetic Frances character, Gerwig pulls Kirke into her whirlwind life as an aspiring exercise instructor/singer/fashionista/cooking instructor/hairdresser/tutor/app developer/freelance interior decorator/writer, and tries to encourage the younger girl to embrace life to the fullest.