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Reviews of Recent Independent, Foreign, & Documentary Films in Theaters and DVD/Home Video
GREENBERG It is always difficult to care for a film with a central character who is whiney, self-centered, and pathetic. Greenberg the movie and Greenberg the character are no exception. It is even harder when they both feel like a warmed-over, over-long extension of an interlude from Annie Hall. Fortunately, it is awhile until we meet Greenberg. First introduced is 25-year-old Florence (Greta Gerwig, moving up from 20-something’s mumblecore romances). She seems very efficient as she runs through a series of errands around Los Angeles, but that’s only when she’s following detailed instructions as a personal assistant to a perfectionist employer. In her personal life, she’s pretty much a hapless doormat, from her musical career stalled at open mike nights to her desultory sexual hook-ups. When we finally meet Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), he is perfecting doing nothing by housesitting for her vacationing employer, his brother Phillip (Chris Messina). Because of his last name and gesticulations when he talks, the partying neighbors mistake him for a Jewish New Yorker, as if he were a foreign import from a time warp, no matter how much he mutters that his mother was not Jewish and he is a native Angeleno. To add to the perceptions of the Woody Allen stereotype, he has been going through psychotherapy (in recovery from a nervous breakdown), doesn’t drive a car, raises complaining to an epistolary art form, and seems incapable of having age-appropriate relationships. At least his old friends see the 40-year-old for what he really is. Compared to so many comedies these days that admire Peter Pan adults, it is somewhat refreshing that he gets told off about what a jerk he was and is. Eric (Mark Duplass) is still fuming that 15 years ago Greenberg nixed a record deal for their band. Others make clear they have moved on and Greenberg should too. Surprisingly gentle with this message is his very maternal ex-girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh). Through many scenes of Greenberg awkwardly seeking the kindness of much younger strangers, the rest of the film pretty much repeats that message over and over, usually from his exceedingly patient old friend Ivan (Rhys Ifans). Even though the far too accommodating Ivan keeps giving Greenberg rides, Ifans stands out as a guy genuinely struggling to clean up, grow up, and accept family responsibilities, eschewing his more familiar comic (Notting Hill) and creepy (Enduring Love) personas. The music selections add sweet commentary when the characters can’t articulate feelings (particularly an apt recurrence of Albert Hammond’s “It Never Rains in Southern California”), aided by the first film score of LCD Soundsystem’s James Murphy. But as Florence and Greenberg share care of his brother’s sick dog, it is almost painful to watch Florence indulge him while he takes pity on her. It is not
really very suspenseful whether either or both of them will finally
decide to mature through a plot turn that just seems like a post-Roe vs.
Wade twist on 1963’s Love With the Proper Stranger (not that
these stars compare to Steve McQueen and Natalie Wood). Rent that
Oscar-nominated classic romance instead.
Nora Lee Mandel
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