Director: Noah Baumbach

Starring: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Jennifer Jason Leigh

Rating: 3/5


Roger Greenberg (Stiller) is a mess. 40 years old, single, recovering from a nervous breakdown, with OCD and possible alcoholism, he moves from New York to LA to house-sit for his brother while he’s on holiday. Getting back in touch with old friends reopens a 15 year-old wound: Greenberg scuppered his band’s deal with a major label, permanently ruining all their chances of success. Ivan (Ifans) has just about come to terms with this, and the pair revive their shambolic friendship. Greenberg also starts an uneasy relationship with his brother’s PA Florence (Gerwig) that doesn’t look particularly healthy for either of these troubled souls.

In other words: this isn’t your usual Ben Stiller broad comedy, and I found it hard to take him seriously at times, especially when his attempts to look earnest reminded me of the comic mileage he got from his face in Zoolander. Greenberg is an awkward, difficult character in an awkward, difficult film, and Stiller has form here – not as an actor, but as the director of cult anti-classic The Cable Guy. Whilst this is a far subtler film, it sometimes reaches a similar level of pain – a scene with Greenberg acting the cool grown up at a party full of kids half his age is sheer agony to watch.

This is lo-fi cinema, where dramas aren’t resolved, scenes are left hanging, and characters don’t say what they mean. It’s like a soap opera where almost all of the bad events have already happened, and all that’s left is to talk about them. I say “almost”, because a serious, traumatic event does happen to one character about two-thirds of the way through – not that they or anybody else seems traumatised by it. There’s a darkness here, a slowness, a twisted sense of humour that will alienate people.

But there’s also a truthfulness, and it speaks to anybody whose life has got away from them and taken them in unintended directions. Baumbach pinpoints a claustrophobia in the hazy expanse of LA, and it quickly becomes clear that the huge house of a successful, rich brother is not the best place to recover from a breakdown – Greenberg is surrounded by a symbol of the success that he screwed up.

No wonder Greenberg gets angry, creating pointless arguments out of his emotional turmoil, but Stiller has spent too long in his comedy comfort zone and isn’t always believable, especially in his scenes with Florence. Greta Gerwig – even her name seems designed for indie queen status, like “Parker Posey” or “Zooey Deschanel” – is open, sweet, sympathetic and entirely convincing. She sells the illogical logic behind this relationship, as she gives Greenberg second, third, fourth chances. You may need to suppress the urge to scream at the screen to stay the hell away from him.




At the screening I attended, a bunch of guys clearly expecting a Ben Stiller comedy loudly expressed how much they hated Greenberg as soon as the end credits started. Is this a good movie, or is it self-indulgent twaddle? Tell us below.