BROADCASTS.com

In \u201cNo Method to Her Madness,\u201d a review of the Noah Baumbach film Greenberg that could\u2019ve also been titled \u201cOde to Greta Gerwig,\u201d A.O. Scott wrote that the actress, \u201cmost likely without intending to be anything of the kind, may well be the definitive screen actress of her generation.\u201d He goes on (at length) to praise her performance, or lack thereof. \u201cShe comes across as pretty, smart, hesitant, insecure, confused, determined \u2014 all at once or in no particular order. Which is to say that she is bracingly, winningly and sometimes gratingly real.\u201d He\u2019s still talking about Greenberg, but the same could be said of her work in films like Frances Ha, Mistress America and Maggie\u2019s Plan.\n\nBen Brantley, Scott\u2019s colleague over in the theater department, seemed equally smitten with her stage debut as Becky in The Village Bike: \u201cShe registers as guileless because we can detect every confused emotion that crosses her face... She reads as so transparent that her feelings come to seem like our own. There\u2019s no barrier of glossy, movie star charm between her and us.\u201d\n\nIf you don\u2019t see many mainstream titles on her IMDb page, it may be because studios serve up most of their features with a generous dollop of gloss. It could also be because Gerwig knows what material suits her. And she should \u2013 she\u2019s co-written and co-directed a lot of it, mostly with indie filmmakers like Baumbach and Joe Swanberg. Though these are no doubt some of her most acclaimed performances, even in her occasional mainstream forays (2011\u2019s Arthur\xa0and No Strings Attached) she\u2019s often singled out as the only part of the movie worth watching. Taken as a whole, the applause seems to boil down to this: It\u2019s very hard to catch her acting. As a performer, she is unselfconscious in a way that lets us look through her and see ourselves, and she\u2019s not pulling any punches in the reflection.\n\nShe\u2019s a natural if there ever was one, but for a long time the question seemed to be, a natural what? A fervent aspiring ballerina, fencer, trumpeter, aerobics instructor (that was all before graduating high school), Gerwig embraced her interests with both arms and all her passion. In college she intended to become a playwright (or maybe study musical theater) before meeting Swanberg, who cast her in 2006\u2019s LOL. For a while she worried about not feeling the same singular purpose or calling as some of her peers; there was also a period when she worried a move from mumblecore to mainstream might never happen. But now that hopping genres, creative capacities and even distribution platforms is becoming the industry\u2019s new normal, it seems like a very good time to be someone who can be almost anyone \u2013 on either side of the camera.\n\nThis month, she\u2019s in front of it in 20th Century Women along with Annette Bening and Billy Crudup. In 2017, she\u2019ll step behind it with Lady Bird, which stars Saoirse Ronan and marks Gerwig\u2019s first solo directing effort. She\u2019s also working on the script for a film adaptation of Little Women \u2013 and we can\u2019t think of a better (or more interesting) woman for the job.\n\nFor some artists, picking a lane seems not only unnecessary, but foolish, especially for an artist who\u2019s all-in, all the time. \u201cYou could always not invest, but where\u2019s the fun in that?\u201d she told The Guardian earlier this year. \u201cIt\u2019s like when people say, \u2018I don\u2019t really care about Christmas, it\u2019s just a day.\u2019 Of course it\u2019s just a day, but this is all we\u2019ve got! We go around one time\u2026 Let\u2019s invest. It\u2019s not always logical to do so, but what else are you gonna do with your life?\u201d