GREENBERG directed by Noah Baumbach, written by Baumbach from a story by Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh, with Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Mark Duplass and Leigh. An Alliance release. 106 minutes. Opens Friday (March 26). For venues, times and trailers, see Movies. Rating: NNNN
It's easy to create a miserable character if you plan on making him happy and well-adjusted by the end of the movie. Noah Baumbach isn't interested in making that kind of movie, and Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is not that kind of character.[rssbreak]
He's a genuine mess of misanthropy, self-loathing and poor impulse control, which is how he winds up in L.A. after a nervous breakdown in New York, living in his brother Phillip's house and falling into a passive-aggressive relationship with Phillip's personal assistant (Greta Gerwig), who's as fucked up in her own way as he is.
Stuff happens, but Greenberg isn't really about plot. It's about moments observed in two very different lives, and how those lives affect each other, and the slow path toward self-awareness.
It's an incisive, painful and frequently ugly movie - and I mean that as a compliment. Stiller and Gerwig are terrific, and as he did in The Squid And The Whale and Margot At The Wedding, Baumbach turns the harshest misery into driest comedy - and then back into misery - in the most fascinating way.