Blah, Blah, Blah, Blah

There's a guy who sits behind me at Dodger Stadium from time to time.   I think he's the boyfriend of the girl whose dad owns the season seats.   Well, anyway, when that dude shows up, you want to bring along your Bose Noise Cancelling Headphones.   

Yep, he never shuts up.   He has little to say, but the mouth keeps going. Endlessly.  

We all know somebody like this.   Perhaps it's the date your cousin brought to Thanksgiving dinner.  Or the girl your friend just started to date and they want to go to dinner with you. People you never ever would put into the plotline of your own life.   But there they are.

If you totally understand that type of annoyance now, you will pretty much know what "Mistress America" is all about.   This is the latest film by writer-director Noah Baumbach who has also likely bored a dinner companion once or twice in his life.   If he's anything like the obnoxious and chatty characters he creates, you should have the waiter bring your check.  Immediately.

That's not to say that his movies aren't interesting.  They're always jammed back with self-involved losers who can't say a thing without it being the most clever phraseology known to man.  Real people don't really communicate like this, but not so in Baumbach's cinematic world.  But, as I wrote earlier, these people do exist so I guess he does have his finger on somebody's pulse.   Maybe he sits in my Dodger Stadium section, too.

This is another film set in Manhattan and about the folks living there amidst the hustle and bustle.   Tracy is a Barnard College student looking for a writing career and the chance to be somebody or anybody's friend.   She meets Brooke, who just might wind up as her sister because Tracy's mom is about to marry Brooke's dad.   Brooke, as played by co-writer Greta Gerwig, is one of those nuts who has always just gotten a job or just lost a job or just found an apartment or just got kicked out of an apartment or just found a boyfriend or just got ditched by a boyfriend.  That's one long sentence without punctuation.   But that's also how Brooke talks, so get used to it.

Gerwig also starred in Baumbach's "Frances Ha" and she played the same unlovable slug in that film as well.   But, if I remember that movie correctly, there was an interesting story buried in the cacophony.  Here we have some bare bones story structure that ultimately go nowhere.   Except that it involves more characters who never shut up.   Everybody talks over everybody else.  

Will somebody please pass the cranberries?

I read one review of "Mistress America" and that critic said Baumbach perfectly captured a female friendship in Manhattan.

No wonder I moved.

LEN'S RATING:  Two stars.

Dinner last night:  Chef's salad.