Greenberg Movie Review 2

By Anne Brodie Mar 26, 2010, 17:41 GMT

Roger Greenberg [Ben Stiller], single, fortyish and at a crossroads in his life, finds himself in Los Angeles, house-sitting for six weeks for his more successful/married-with-children brother.  In search of a place to restart his life, Greenberg tries to reconnect with old friends including his former bandmate Ivan [Rhys Ifans].  But old friends aren\'t necessarily still best friends, and Greenberg soon finds himself spending more and more time with his brother\'s personal ...more

Mumblecore gives me headaches, and Greenberg is at its heart mumblecore.  It’s a romantic drama that lacks drama and romance in favour of following in minute details the tiniest thoughts of a group of unappealing characters stuck in middle class Hollywood.  Why the filmmakers would think anyone would be interested in sitting around with these lame characters as they dither through their days is a mystery.  If a directionless film about barely formed (and unbearable) characters is your thing, this is for you.

Ben Stiller is one of the most engaging and charming actors around – he’s funny, zany, adorable, and intelligent for starters.  He is completely wasted on Roger Greenberg, an obnoxious jackass who has just been sprung from a mental hospital to house sit his brother’s Hollywood home to do ‘nothing’.  He’s opportunistic and self-obsessed with a significant disconnect to the world. 

Stiller pulls back everything that makes him unique and appealing for the part and replaces it with hostility, monstrous selfishness, and stupidity.  Why?  A stretch?  Not the best direction to stretch. 

Greenberg’s clearly fragile when we meet him and in need of peace and quiet, but as always, and for all of us, life intrudes.  He’s exposed to a constant parade of people who chip away at his fortress of solitude - the neighbours who abuse their swimming pool privileges, his brother’s annoyingly ditzy and dopey personal assistant, and his estranged friend – even the dog gets sick and requires actual care and concern.
He is not aided by his screaming brother who abuses him over the phone from Vietnam; you can see right there what his life experience has been.  Greenberg’s the whipping boy of an angry creep and he agrees with him wholeheartedly.

Authentic human relations are foreign territory to Greenberg; he has no concept of the concept.  He has a lifelong history of letting people down, starting with his closest friend Ivan (Rhys Ifans).  They had a band back in the day and Greenberg decided not to sign a recording contract they were offered, robbing his band mates of their life’s dreams. 

His love life is non-existent until he decides to awkwardly seduce the dopey assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig), who, it turns out, is a bit of a problem and prone to acting like an ingratiating five year old.  Their relationship doesn’t grow as much as lurches this way and that.  They aren’t sure what they want or how to get it, and more importantly how to connect.  Their efforts are not entertaining; they are anti-entertaining, even grotesque.

There’s not much to discuss concerning the film’s achievements.  Is pointlessly obnoxious a style?  

The one person worth caring for in this sad story is the wonderfully underplayed Ivan, who is traumatised by his marital breakdown and looking for some comfort in his friendship with Greenberg.  But Greenberg never notices.  Ifans is superb in this unusually dramatic role.  Now that’s a stretch I can get behind.

35mm drama
Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Opens: March 26
Runtime:
MPAA:
Country: USA
Language:
English