The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Wednesday, September 16, 2015 — 5A

‘America’ paints 
millenial portrait

Strongest work yet 
from Baumbach 

and Gerwig

By VANESSA WONG

Daily Arts Writer

As students and future success-

ful people, we all see college as a 
time to be unique, but most often 
we emulate peo-
ple we admire 
to develop our 
own identities. 
In 
“Mistress 

America,” 
the 

hilariously well-
scripted second 
collaboration 
between Noah 
Baumbach 
(“Kicking and Screaming”) and 
Greta Gerwig (“Frances Ha”), a 
lonely college freshman finds her 
role model in an older sister figure.

Though initially reluctant to 

involve herself in her mother’s 
impending marriage, Tracy (Lola 
Kirke, “Gone Girl”) meets her 
soon-to-be 
stepsister, 
Brooke 

(Greta Gerwig). Whereas Tracy is 
the archetype of precocious-but-
naïve-Faulkner-name-dropping 
English major, Brooke, 10 years 
older, trailblazes the path to the 
yuppie paradise that lies in Tra-
cy’s future. Brooke crackles with 
hyperactivity energy, hurling out 
neatly-packaged Twitticisms and 
drunken life anecdotes with dead-
pan timing that would make Lore-

lai Gilmore bow at her feet. She’s 
essentially the Manic Pixie Dream 
Girl grown up. In between teach-
ing Soul Cycle sessions and sing-
ing on stage with a band, Brooke 
dreams up plans for a restaurant-
slash-market-slash 
community 

center that also moonlights as a 
yoga center on Tuesdays, and if 
that doesn’t work out, she has this 
amazing TV show idea, and oh, 
there’s this really rich guy from 
high school who is totally still in 
love with her, ya know?

 Tracy doesn’t actually know, 

but she eagerly jumps into 
Brooke’s life with infatuated 
admiration. She finds Brooke so 
compelling that she writes a story 
about her and takes every chance 
she can get to stay overnight at 
Brooke’s fancy apartment and 
tag along to concerts and busi-
ness meetings galore. Eventu-
ally, Tracy helps Brooke turn her 
restaurant idea into reality, and 
in true Brooke-fashion, it’s an 
eccentric adventure.

 The characters are parodies 

and real people all at the same 
time, 
masterfully 
assembled. 

They’re not forced out of their 
stereotypes unnaturally, à la 
High School Musical’s “Stick 
to the Status Quo” (“I bake!”), 
which lacks subtlety and, to some 
extent, realism. Though Tracy 
idolizes Brooke’s charisma and 
supports her almost uncondition-
ally, she recognizes that Brooke 
can’t go through her whole adult 
life bearing this youthful ban-
ner. Even the supposed enemy 

in the film, Brooke’s high school 
nemesis whose life is the picture 
perfect image of “boring” white 
picket fence type success, adds 
a much-needed dose of real-
ity to Brooke’s erratic antics. 
Refreshingly, 
neither 
Brooke 

nor Tracy eradicates her flaws 
over the course of the film, but 
rather learn to recognize them 
and accept them regardless. The 
film doesn’t tie everything up in a 
bow; the characters end as works 
in progress. It feels almost sweet-
er this way, that they receive a 
happy resolution but don’t have 
to be perfect or end a life chapter 
to do it.

 In the final scene, which cou-

ples heartwarming sisterly love 
with Tracy’s overwrought prose 
for one last joke, I didn’t feel the 
buoyant warm and fuzzies I’ve 
come to associate with Baum-
bach/Gerwig 
collaborations. 

There is actually quite a bit of 
character depth, but the script is 
so self-aware (and aware that it’s 
self-aware) that the satire often 
overwhelms emotion. 

 Still, the script is witty 

enough to hold its ground. 
Before “Mistress America” hit 
the scene, “Frances Ha” was 
arguably Baumbach and Ger-
wig’s best work to date, both as 
individuals and collaborators. 
But now, the duo takes all the 
razor-sharp wit that they’ve 
previously been known for and 
amps it up for a delightful romp 
through a developing sisterly 
relationship.

SONY PICTURES

“Oooo being midly wealthy is so niceeee.”

A-

Mistress 
America

Sony Pictures

State Theater

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

“What the fuck grandma?!?!”
‘The Visit’ not as bad 
as one might expect

By BENJAMIN ROSENSTOCK

Daily Arts Writer

Many horror movies, like 

“Paranormal 
Activity” 
and 

this year’s “The Gift,” follow 
the same for-
mula. 
The 

protagonists 
first 
encoun-

ter 
some-

thing slightly 
unusual 
and 

brush it off. 
With 
each 

passing 
day, 

stranger 
things begin to happen, and 
it becomes impossible to dis-
miss the series of events. By the 
last act, the film has built up a 
steady growth of subtle threats 
until a climax of violence and 
general insanity.

“The Visit,” the newest hor-

ror movie written and directed 
by M. Night Shyamalan (“The 
Sixth Sense”), sticks to this 
common 
schematic, 
bearing 

resemblance to “Paranormal 
Activity” both with its found 
footage style and its method 
of 
juxtaposing 
eerie 
night-

time shots and bright morning 
scenes. In “Paranormal Activ-
ity,” morning scenes allowed 
the viewer to breathe a sigh of 
relief after the high tension of 
the night. In “The Visit,” unfor-
tunately, each morning signals 
another tedious wait until the 
next burst of plot movement. 
While the thrills of “Paranor-
mal Activity” were enough to 
inspire dread for the next night, 
the thrills of “The Visit” spark 
little suspense.

The film follows young ama-

teur filmmaker Becca (Olivia 
DeJonge, “Hiding”) and her 
obnoxious little brother Tyler 
(Ed Oxenbould, “Alexander and 
the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, 
Very Bad Day”) as they spend a 
week with their grandparents. 
Becca and Tyler’s mother, Paula 
(Kathryn 
Hahn, 
“Transpar-

ent”), had a falling out with her 
parents after a fight years ago. 

Becca, filming the visit docu-
mentary-style, hopes to find an 
“elixir” — some sign of forgive-
ness that will lead Paula to rec-
oncile with her parents.

The emotional crux of the 

film rests on Becca and Tyler’s 
attempts to help their mother, 
all the while agonizing over 
the father who left them years 
ago. In the middle of the film, 
the horror element is dropped 
almost entirely in favor of a 
sequence 
where 
Becca 
and 

Tyler conduct talking head 
interviews with each other. 
Tyler, after spending most of 
the movie cracking wise jokes 
and rapping terribly, bashfully 
admits he feels responsible for 
their father’s abandonment. In 
Becca’s interview, Tyler calls 
her out for an insecurity she 
has never mentioned. It’s a pair 
of scenes that carries a surpris-
ing amount of emotional heft, 
and in a sea of talentless child 
actors, DeJonge and Oxenbould 
create a sibling relationship 
that feels authentic.

Unfortunately, 
the 
osten-

sible primary plot of the movie, 
involving 
Becca’s 
quest 
for 

the “elixir,” is more of a glo-
rified subplot in service of a 
fairly by-the-numbers horror 
story. In between cheap jump 
scares, there aren’t many gen-
uine thrills to go around. For 
most of the movie, Shyamalan 
makes the interesting choice to 
ground most of the grandpar-
ents’ creepy moments in prob-
lems many elderly people run 
into instead of demonic malevo-
lence. Nana (Deanna Dunagan, 
“August: Osage County”) stum-
bles around the house in the 

middle of the night in confusion, 
showing symptoms of demen-
tia. Pop Pop (Peter McRobbie, 
“Lincoln”) has a stash of soiled 
diapers hidden away as a result 
of his incontinence. There is 
an element of creepiness to the 
sight of Nana projectile vomit-
ing in the middle of the night 
and the shot of Pop Pop stick-
ing a gun into his own mouth, 
but it rarely feels dangerous. If 
the problem is simply that these 
people are getting old and con-
fused, what physical threat do 
they actually pose?

Luckily, there’s a Shyama-

lan twist waiting to kick off the 
third act that shows the true 
danger of the scenario, and once 
it’s revealed, the film finally 
kicks it into high gear, descend-
ing into all-out lunacy. Finally, 
the elements of dark humor 
that the beginning of the movie 
hinted at come out in full force. 
In one inspired scene, Becca 
and Tyler sit and nervously play 
a game of Yahtzee with their 
grandparents, and there’s no 
pretending that it’s just a normal 
family game night. It’s a marvel-
ous scene, both hilarious and 
tense, and every scene thereaf-
ter combines those conflicting 
tones brilliantly.

There’s a time and place for 

atmosphere and slow build-
ups, but “The Visit” shows that, 
like action, horror can often be 
at its most fun when the story 
stops stalling and the filmmak-
ers start having fun. The film 
ends on a solid note, but it’s dif-
ficult not to wish less time was 
spent on “old people problems” 
and more on the true horror 
beneath the surface.

B-

The Visit

Universal 
Pictures

Rave and Quality 16

A classic 

Shyamalan 

twist.

MUSIC NOTEBOOK
Five songs I should 
have heard before 

By RACHEL KERR

Daily Arts Writer

I’d like to think I’m pretty 
 

“with it” when it comes to music; 
I frequently check blogs, skim 
through Reddit, scour the Inter-
net for leaks, etc. But, sometimes 
stuff slips through the cracks 
and doesn’t reveal itself until my 
friend is giving me shit because, 
how have you not heard about 
this band/artist/song? Once the 
embarrassment 
subsides 
and 

the how the fuck did I miss this? 
moment passes, you probably have 
some pretty good tracks to catch 
up on, like I did with these.

“Baby”– Ariel Pink’s Haunt-

ed Graffiti

Ariel Pink’s dreamy 2012 cover 

of Joe and Donnie Emerson’s 
“Baby” popped up on a friend’s 
Spotify playlist earlier this sum-
mer, and I’ve since described it as 
the “perfect song.” It’s warm but 
cloudy, mysterious but satisfying, 
contemporary but nostalgic. And 
Pink’s sultry vocals take the track 
to new heights, hit-single wise and 
new-depths, heart wise. 

“Codeine Crazy”– Future
Sorry, but I had to throw this 

one on here because I have half 
ironically, half un-ironically been 
calling “Codeine Crazy” the best 
song of 2015, even though it tech-
nically dropped almost a year ago 
on Future’s 2014 mixtape, Mon-
ster. What works about the track 
is it’s versatility — it can be both a 
banger and a ballad. Never before 
have I heard the phrase “I just took 

a bitch to eat at Chipotle” sound so 
sentimental.

“Gardenhead / Leave Me 

Alone”– Neutral Milk Hotel
Most Neutral Milk Hotel fans, 

when prompted, will rave about 
their 1998 album In the Aeroplane 
Over The Sea. It’s deeply loved by 
indie fans and indie critics alike; 
Pitchfork gave it a perfect 10/10 – 
not to say Pitchfork is the ultimate 
authority, but hey, it still means 
something. Fans of the group are 
much less familiar with On Avery 
Island, the album that preceded 
their magnum opus. However, this 
track hinted at the gold Neutral 
Milk Hotel would soon strike, at 
the potential they were about to 
unlock. 

“In Dreams”– tomemisu 

I found this gem hidden at the 

end of an episode of the web series 
“High Maintenance” (thank God 

I always watch the credits) and I 
haven’t been the same since. When 
almost every verse begins with 
“when I look around my heart … 
” it’s impossible not to get senti-
mental. Its bedroom-y feel is only 
accentuated by the low-quality 
recording, in which you even hear 
a chime from the artists cell phone 
if you listen close enough. Talk 
about intimate. 

“Beach Community”– Joyce 

Manor

I don’t know what I was doing 

in 2011, but I know what I should 
have been doing in 2011: listen-
ing to more Joyce Manor. I heard 
their self-titled LP in high school 
but never really gave it more than 
a listen or two. Maybe I’m angstier 
than I was at 16, but this shit really 
resonates with me now. The post-
punk ballad is loud and angry and 
that’s just how I like it. 

EPIC RECORDS

#FutureHive.

The thrills of 

‘The Visit’ spark 
little suspense.

FILM REVIEW
FILM REVIEW