More "Greenberg" Flotsam And Jetsam!

Noel sends one review of "Greenberg" from Slate, but they've posted two reviews! Everyone's a critic, I guess!

Here's a piece of one review by Dana Stevens:

The uneasy power differential between Roger and Florence is mirrored in the star-power differential between Stiller and Gerwig. She's a 27-year-old actress best known for co-writing and starring in the mumblecore indie Hannah Takes the Stairs, while he's … Derek Zoolander, Greg Focker, Tugg Speedman. Putting them together was a bold casting move, but as good as they both are in their roles—she in the flustered, galumphing mode of early Teri Garr, he in the clenched and mumbling one of late Woody Allen—they never quite seem to be sharing the same movie. Stiller appears more at home, and his character makes more sense, in his scenes with Ifans, a tall, gentle man whose diffident manner provides the perfect foil for Stiller's perpetually simmering rage.

There will be many people—my viewing companion was one of them—who'll be as repelled by Greenberg the movie as most of the people in it are repelled by Greenberg the man. That's their prerogative, and Baumbach's experimental foray into abrasive romantic comedy certainly isn't for everyone. But Greenberg's inconclusive last scene hints at the possibility that even the bitterest basket case stands a chance of finding someone who loves him. That's sort of my hope for this movie, too.

And here's the other by Jessica Winter:

There's another problem with treating the people in your life as short-story fodder or as characters in the movie unspooling in your mind: They might start thinking for themselves and reciting lines you didn't write for them. When Greenberg's Florence says that she likes spending time with Roger, his response is apoplectic: "You don't like it!" he screams. It's an absurd outburst, but one that a narcissist consumed with self-loathing feels in his blood and bones. He can't imagine anyone not thinking what he's thinking—and haven't so many of us been there, at least once or twice in our lives? Baumbach's malcontents may drive us crazy, but they always retain a measure of sympathy and humanity because they are extreme manifestations of a universal dilemma: the impossibility of escaping one's own head.