Clip: Greta Gerwig’s character gets amusing introduction in ‘Mistress America’

“Don’t judge me, f***ers”, Amy warns her audience, but that’s exactly what this film does. The dialogue is orchestrated and intentional, but it fits the film’s literary themes and Baumbach and his cast keep it bubbling with energy. From the former, Baumbach and Gerwig continue their exploration of female friendship; from the latter, its consideration of the gender gap between older adults and Millennials.

Baumbach’s new film, Mistress America, dramatizes the exact opposite end of the undergrad experience. What was it like looking back at college from this perspective, 20 years later? In a more modest but no less winning performance, Lola Kirke – younger sister of Girls regular Jemima Kirke, and a near-ringer – somewhat steps into the shadows after the first act, as Tracy becomes Brooke’s follower and confidante. I didn’t think it was something I could do. Basically over these last few movies I’ve been able to visually get what I didn’t get on that movie. “But I don’t know”. And then I’ll wear that T-shirt like it’s gold. I’m so happy about it. I just finished watching “Top of the Lake” with Elisabeth Moss. And I thought that was important.

Yeah. And I felt like that was something important to try to show. When the film reaches Mamie-Claire’s chilly modernist mansion, Mistress America settles into an extended centrepiece involving multiple characters – including a couple of Tracy’s fellow students, an angry neighbour and a member of a pregnant women’s reading group (this week’s texts: Faulkner and a biography of Derrida, for light relief). It’s reminiscent of Hughes’ mix of comedy and drama (not to mention introspectiveness) without being derivative, though Mistress America tilts more heavily towards the comedic side. They both express themselves very well – maybe Brooke at a higher pitch. Most of the characters are made up of signatures of the filmmaker — clever, captivating and charismatic — but they speak to each other the way Lauren Graham and Alexis Bledel did on that WB series. I remember there was this one girl who intimidated me because she was so cool. And for the characters, the hurt is beyond ethics.

“It’s amusing that people ask me if I’m Brooke because really I’m more like Tracy”, says the actress.

“College is just so gross”, says Gerwig, who did her time at, yes, Barnard. She nearly instantly deifies Brooke as this “it girl, ” the kind of person who wants to open her own restaurant that doubles as a “community center” of sorts. As the pushback to Gerwig’s force field, Kirke may at times be too mousy for her own (or the film’s) good, but her stillnesses are often a welcome respite in this whirligig.

But perhaps nothing makes Gerwig as distinctive as her knowledge of Hollywood history.

Bill Hader proves an excellent comic foil, Tilda Swinton roars everyone else off the screen whenever she appears, and basketball star LeBron James is most amusing playing a fictionalised version of himself.

“We wanted to emulate those movies where things go insane”. Underneath the façade, Brooke is every bit as fragile (and likable) as Frances.

The opening scene of director Noah Baumbach’s first movie, Kicking and Screaming-released 20 years ago this fall-took place on graduation night as the final moments of university ticked away. And then, yeah, there’s two in While We’re Young – “Let ‘Em In” and “Nineteen Hundred and Eighty-Five”. “And cover them by prodding me with a makeup wand that he did not know how to use”. I love his voice.

The script does smartly throw Tracy and Brooke together. “We’re solid. I think they’re doing a great job”.

I tried to be a child star, but that didn’t work, and you know what? The process there goes on for quite some time. I mean, writing is hard, but not between us.