Greta Gerwig started her career as a member of the mumblecore sub-genre, and little by little, movie by movie, she became a mainstream actress. First as the quirky friend, then the love interest, and finally in the lead role. In all her performances, Gerwig always shows a fun, intelligent side, and she’s game for everything if she thinks it’s what the character needs. As her profile in Hollywood as an actress started rising, so did her screenwriting prowess and her directorial skills. Although we love both Little Women and Lady Bird, and we’re very curious about Barbie, this piece is interested in Greta Gerwig, the actress. And here are her best performances, ranked:
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
8 The House of the Devil (2009)
MPI Media Group
Samantha (Jocelin Donahue) accepts a babysitting job to pay for rent. Once she arrives at the creepy house in the woods, things start getting weirder and scarier by the second. Even if there are some red flags, she accepts the job and, quickly, things get out of hand. Ti West’s The House of the Devil plays with our expectations in this horror movie set in 1983. Gerwig plays a small role as the lead’s best friend, who gets her to the house and then, sensing the creepy vibes, tries to convince her to leave the place and job behind. Although it’s not a big role, Gerwig gives the character more personality and charm than what’s written on the page, making the small role pretty memorable.
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
MOVIEWEB VIDEO OF THE DAY
7 Isle of Dogs (2018)
Fox Searchlight Pictures
A young boy is on a mission to find his missing dog and ends up on Trash Island, where many abandoned dogs exist. This stop-motion film is one of the most surprising in Wes Anderson’s filmography. In Isle of Dogs, Gerwig lends her voice to the character of Tracy, an American foreign-exchange student who’s trying to help the lead character. The union of Wes Anderson and Gerwig makes a lot of sense, and the actress’s enthusiasm works perfectly for this peculiar character, proving that she should do more voice work. Especially if Anderson is behind the script.
6 Greenberg (2010)
Focus Features
Greenberg (Ben Stiller) has just left a mental hospital when he starts house-sitting for his brother. There, he meets his brother’s assistant (Gerwig). Both are lost souls, in strange places in their lives. Things start to get better and more personal between them. This melancholic rom-com is one of Noah Baumbach’s best films and benefited immensely from the two actors’ chemistry. Like in a tennis match, each actor made the other better as they complimented their energies and acting styles, creating a relationship that feels imperfect, messy, awkward, and real. Greenberg showed Gerwig to many audiences, in a role where she’s magnetic, naturalistic, and makes us like the neurotic Greenberg, the more we see him through her loving eyes. Although the movie’s title is Stiller’s character, Gerwig is the film’s shining star. Greenberg was Gerwig’s first collaboration with Noah Baumbach (since then, they’ve worked on five more movies together and started a relationship). She told Indiewire about reading the script: “When I read ‘Greenberg,’ I had a really strong sense if I could be any kind of writer I wanted to be, I’d be this kind of writer. And I felt like, even in my experiences, what writing I had done, even on a small scale, when it was good, it shared some quality with it.”
5 20th Century Women (2016)
A24
Jamie (Lucas Jade Zumann) is a young boy growing up in the ’70s, learning everything about life, relationships, culture, women, love, and sex through three very strong, eccentric, different women in his life: his mother (Annette Bening), his close friend (Elle Fanning) and a tenant at his home (Gerwig). 20th Century Women is a movie about another time, not only the seventies but also a time when small films about normal people discovering the world, could be made easily. Mills always gets great performances from his actors, and this movie is no different as all three women make their mark in the film. Gerwig’s character might look the less important of the three women, but not only does she school Jamie about cool music and literature, but she’s also charismatic, modern, fierce, independent, raw, and artistic, all qualities that influence the kid in his pursuits in life.
4 Nights and Weekends (2008)
IFC Films
James (Joe Swanberg) and Mattie (Gerwig) have a long-distance relationship. He lives in Chicago, and she lives in New York. When they see each other, it all starts out great, with sex, love, and jokes. But long distance changes things and feelings as ideas start to fester. Gerwig was one of the stars of the mumblecore film genre, appearing in many of their best movies. In Nights and Weekends, she not only stars, but also co-wrote and co-directed the movie with Swanberg, and it shows. She knows the character in and out; her insecurities, problems, and qualities, and explores them all, creating a full, layered character that can be at the same time the hero and villain of her own story. This movie showed everything she could do in a film, both in front and behind the camera.
3 Mistress America (2015)
Searchlight Pictures
Mistress America tells the story of Tracy (Lola Kirke) and Brooke (Gerwig) and the friendship that happens between these soon-to-be stepsisters. Tracy is still in college and doesn’t know anyone in New York, while Brooke has just turned thirty and can show her everything the Big Apple can offer. Gerwig co-wrote the movie with Baumbach, and they explore a different kind of woman in her late twenties, one in which her image of herself and where she is aren’t connected at all. The dysfunctional friendship between the two characters lets us see different sides of each of them, and Gerwig shows a more toxic, desperate-to-impress, frustrated, egocentric woman than her characters usually are. All her wittiness becomes pettiness when things aren’t going her way, transforming her into an emotional bomb that could explode at any second. And Gerwig nails all those emotions.
2 Hannah Takes the Stairs (2007)
Hannah (Gerwig) just started working as an intern at a Chicago production company. She just finished college and still doesn’t know who she is or what she wants. That confusion is also reflected in her relationships, as she starts dating two of her co-workers, as they each bring different sides to her character. Hannah Takes the Stairs is considered by many as the best mumblecore movie, and Gerwig is a big part of that, as she co-wrote the film and gives a tour of the force acting performance in the film. She’s the center of it, and although she can be selfish, aloof, quirky, indecisive, hurtful, lost, or full of rage, we’re still rooting for her.
1 Frances Ha (2013)
Frances (Gerwig) is a 27-year-old trying to make it as a dancer in New York. Around her, things started to change. Her best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) leaves the apartment they both share, and she doesn’t get the job she wanted. All this makes her life in constant self-doubt. Shot in black and white, Frances Ha is not only a great movie about women’s friendships but also one of the best films showing the moment in life when people start to have meaningful relationships, jobs, and money, and you’re still trying to get there. Frances is trying to find herself while the world goes round and round, and too quick for her. Gerwig co-wrote the movie with Baumbach (again), and in this role, she puts on a show, displaying his dramatic, comic, and physical abilities. She’s weird, charming, loyal, poor, drunk, in love, and lost and all at the same time. Gerwig told Vogue about the inspiration for Frances Ha: “There’s something that happens around 27 and 28 when people start coupling off more aggressively or changing their lives according to what their economic prospects are, and not keeping themselves on par with the group - you realize suddenly that they’re not your family,” says Gerwig. “And I think that’s very painful.”
