Advance Press On "Greenberg" Looks Great!

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Reviewer sees "Greenberg" in Berlin:

But the one picture I've seen thus far that has truly surprised me is Noah Baumbach's "Greenberg." I've found Baumbach's more recent films frustrating. "Margot at the Wedding," in particular, made me wonder if we'd lost Baumbach for good -- I found it hard to care about a group of characters so rapturously in love with their own quirks; they, and Baumbach, were more fascinated by their own problems than I was.

"Greenberg" features more characters with problems: There's Ben Stiller's fortyish Roger, the Greenberg of the title, who's just been released from a mental hospital in New York and who now finds himself housesitting at his brother's tony digs in L.A. While he hangs out there, acting strangely and often irresponsibly, spending his numerous spare moments writing kvetching letters to Starbucks, the New York Times, and American Airlines, Roger meets his brother's assistant, Florence (played by mumblecore veteran Greta Gerwig). Florence, insecure but strangely forthright, takes a liking to Roger, even though he does everything in his power to rebuff her, often treating her cruelly, or at least thoughtlessly.

I know this sounds like one of those "damaged people fumbling toward love" movies and, well, it is. (The script is by Baumbach, from a story he co-wrote with Jennifer Jason Leigh.) And for much of the movie I couldn't tell if these characters were driving me nuts or affecting me deeply. But in the end, "Greenberg" got me. For the first time in a long time, Stiller actually gives a performance instead of simply clamoring for attention. His Roger is skeletal, enervated; his eyes, hollowed out and pleading, look both dangerously intelligent and desperate. But Gerwig is the marvelous surprise here. Her Florence is one of those seemingly lost girls who wanders through the world looking gangly and awkward and who is yet, strangely, wholly at home within herself (even though she herself doesn't know it). Her spaciness is the down-to-earth kind. "Greenberg" is self-conscious and knowing, and, as we'd expect from Baumbach, sharp-witted. But its self-involvement is capacious enough to include us. "Greenberg" has a soul, a heart, and most importantly a sense of humor -- not just about the world, but about itself.