Green­berg

Roger Green­berg (Ben Stiller) has issues. He’s push­ing 40 but nev­er real­ly set­tled down. His fresh­man dreams squan­dered by the fol­ly of youth, Greenberg’s life has unfold­ed through a suc­ces­sion of ten­ta­tive baby steps towards dis­con­tent­ment. As an out-of-work car­pen­ter fresh from a stretch in a psy­chi­atric hos­pi­tal fol­low­ing a ner­vous break­down, Green­berg spends his days scrib­bling sniffy let­ters to cor­po­rate chains and gen­er­al­ly putting the world to rights.

Return­ing to LA to hous­esit for his hol­i­day­ing broth­er, Green­berg is keen to re-seam the ties he sev­ered when he flew the coop for New York 15 years ear­li­er. Look­ing up old acquain­tances, how­ev­er, mere­ly ampli­fies Greenberg’s self-loathing, which he mas­quer­ades with an uncon­vinc­ing­ly care­free demeanour. But his non­cha­lant atti­tude isn’t fool­ing any­one. The sim­ple truth is, this isn’t how he had it all mapped out.

In a bid to stave off bore­dom, Green­berg decides to bask in the free­dom of his bach­e­lor­dom and fix­es his cri­sis-rid­den crosshairs on his brother’s young assis­tant, Flo­rence (Gre­ta Ger­wig). Approach­ably cute with an unknow­ing, girl-next-door charm, Flo­rence rec­i­p­ro­cates Greenberg’s awk­ward advances, but his hand-grenade tem­pera­ment quick­ly reasserts her reser­va­tions. As Flo­rence pru­dent­ly puts it: ​“Hurt peo­ple hurt people.”

And Green­berg hurts peo­ple. Whether it’s Flo­rence or default best friend and for­mer band­mate Ivan (Rhys Ifans), he seems per­pet­u­al­ly blind to the mis­ery he deflects onto those clos­est to him. But the more he hurts, the more Green­berg begins to realise that Flo­rence might just be the sal­va­tion he’s not been look­ing for.

Although it’s been a while since he’s turned up in any­thing with this much dra­mat­ic mer­it, Stiller is a safe choice in the lead. Assured­ly exca­vat­ing the chip from Chas Tenenbaum’s shoul­der, Stiller’s schiz­o­phrenic per­for­mance rests heav­i­ly on a script laced with wit­ti­cisms, wry humour and even a few momen­tary cries for tom­fool­ery. Ignor­ing his grey­ing, mat­ted hair and drab rus­set attire, this is pret­ty stan­dard Stiller, but the bal­ance between laugh­ing with and at him has been well struck, at least.

If The Squid and the Whale and Mar­got at the Wed­ding were humane in their respec­tive por­tray­als of a fam­i­ly in decay, then Green­berg rep­re­sents some­thing of a depar­ture for Noah Baum­bach. Spin­ning his brand of char­ac­ter blan­ket­ing into an inti­mate dis­sec­tion of one man’s mis­an­throp­ic path of self-depre­da­tion, Baum­bach encour­ages his audi­ence to embrace Green­berg, short­com­ings and all. It’s not an easy sell, but with a scat­ter­brained Ger­wig as the ground­ing force in this unlike­ly but believ­able match-up, you can’t help but warm to him.

Clear­ly Baum­bach is aware of the strength of the Stiller/​Gerwig dynam­ic and as such he refrains from indulging an oth­er­wise sure-hand­ed sup­port­ing cast. Jen­nifer Jason Leigh (aka Mrs Baum­bach) and mum­blek­ing Mark Duplass appear only briefly, while a lack­lus­tre Rhys Ifans is under­played as Greenberg’s all-too-com­pli­ant voice of reason.

Ulti­mate­ly, Green­berg will be judged on a script which, in its sub­sti­tu­tion of wispy idio­syn­crasy for sharp, bit­ing humour, may well see Baum­bach win over the cynics.