Noah Baumbach

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New DVD: Greenberg

August 11, 2010 in Film | Permalink

Roger Greenberg is probably the least likable character that Ben Stiller has played since 1998's "Your Friends & Neighbors."

Mumblecore for the middle-aged set, Noah Baumbach’s conversation-driven, relentlessly unsentimental romantic drama, Greenberg, completes a trilogy of films by the director (along with The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding) that is fueled by mid-life disaffection. The earlier movies feature bitterly disappointed adults flailing every which way, but none of them possess the anomie displayed by the character of 40-year-old New York carpenter Roger Greenberg.

Greenberg (Ben Stiller) exits a mental hospital in which he was recovering from a nervous breakdown and enters his brother’s home in Southern California, where he is to do house-sitting duty for his well-to-do, vacationing sibling. He may be in sunny Los Angeles, but Greenberg’s off the grid emotionally. And returning to the site of his youth, where he damaged numerous relationships and ruined his rock band’s one chance for success fifteen years earlier, seems to bring out the worst in him. And his almost constant drinking doesn’t help.

Despite Greenberg’s misery, he begins a fumbling relationship with his brother’s young assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig), a rudderless, compliant woman who talks about her moonlight singing gigs in hushed tones. She sees possibilities in Greenberg, but he isn’t the kind of stray who wants to be rescued, and he answers her kindness with cruelty.

It’s difficult to fathom at first why Florence puts up with this treatment, but as the accusations and denials between the couple escalate, you realize that she’s just as wounded as he is, even if her hurt is self-directed. Ultimately, they and all their friends have reasons, if not answers, for their questionable behavior. (Available from Netflix and other outlets.)

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