Greenberg

[Note: I ordered a copy of Greenberg just so I could watch the film and write something. Then I forgot I ordered the thing, and went ahead with the Grindhouse movies. So now I have to back-date this and admit my folly. Enjoy.]

Noah Baumbach's films aren't always easy to take. He gets at the quirks of real people, and sometimes terrible people, and sometimes incredibly boring, messed-up people, and he does so with aplomb every single time.

If you've seen a Noah Baumbach film, you probably got awkward characters behaving awkwardly in awkward situations. He's good at getting at people. He's getting much better at films about deeply damaged people. I wish I could write more insightful stuff about this film, but I haven't seen this one enough times to really study all the nuances.

Ben Stiller plays Roger Greenberg, a former mental patient who housesits for his brother and basically spends the entire film trying to find a delicate balance between being a dick being an even bigger dick. He spends his free time writing complaint letters to various businesses and trying very hard to do nothing with his life.

Unlike a lot of films that take a selfish, loner misanthrope type and turn him (always a him) around in the span of 90-120 minutes, Baumbach makes no such attempt here. Roger Greenberg behaves in much the same way that a real misanthrope would behave, and doesn't get much better. He has a kind of existential revelation toward the end, but rather than going all saccharine or sentimental, we're left with this "new" Greenberg who isn't transformed so much as just slightly nudged forward.

My wife and I rented this one a few months ago, and she hated it. This thing is billed as a comedy of sorts, but really isn't. That's not why she didn't like the film. This is a super dry character piece about a total misanthropic asshole. In a way, I sort of identified with Greenberg, and in other ways I loathed him. I know there's a lot more here, though. I just need to look harder.

There are funny moments and some good lines, but the film doesn't seem stuck in genre conventions. There's a three-act structure at work, but again, the film doesn't seem bogged down in any kind of formula. I feel like I'm letting you down here, because I don't have anything revelatory to say that either 1) doesn't make me sound like a pretentious asshat and 2) hasn't already been written in any of the millions of reviews on this film.

Baumbach's films make me a little indignant. I write these little character pieces and have the toughest time getting anybody outside of friends and family to read anything. But this isn't about some self-loathing, staring-at-my-hands thing. If I let that take over, I turn into just another asshole like Greenberg, and the world has enough of those. I just have to keep nudging myself forward and letting my friends and family do the same.