Review of Greenberg (2010) by Liang X — 27 Nov 2011

If you're sick of the standard Hollywood blockbusters, Greenberg offers a movie experience totally different from anything else we've seen this year. The plot is simple enough: Ben Stiller plays the titular character, Roger Greenberg, who is a middle-aged man recovering from a recent nervous breakdown by staying in his brother's place while he and his family are out vacationing. Greenberg tries to do nothing initially but decides to date his brother's personal assistant, Florence (indie actor Greta Gerwig), an awkward fresh graduate at a loss for direction in life, after he is forced to ask her for help in taking care of the family dog. The two lost souls struggle to rediscover themselves through reaching out to each other. Sounds familiar, right?

Well, there's a twist. Classifying this movie as a romantic comedy would be disingenuous; akin to calling Night at The Museum a historical documentary - the romance was non-existent and the comedy depressing. As the film progressed, we started squirming in our seats and cringing at Ben Stiller's misanthropic endeavours to offend as many people who care about him as possible. This includes his (possibly only) friend, Ivan (played with nuance by Rhys Ifans) and Florence. Especially Florence. Indeed, calling Stiller the protagonist would be wrong - he should more appropriately be labelled the antagonist for the way he abuses poor Florence with remarkable predictability. In fact, the romance between Greenberg and Florence felt so unlikely and unfulfilling that it constantly felt forced even as the characters have awkward sex on screen.

We understand the intention of director and script writer Noah Baumbach to portray an intense realism that strips away all pretenses in film, offering an up close and personal examination of the human psyche and its various neuroses, but the movie quickly become stale once that is established. The director could have been forgiven if the movie had been marketed as new-age and brimming with cynicism and raw, negative emotions, which is what it really is. The only saving grace is fresh-faced Greta Gerwig as the hugely likeable Florence, her innocent free spirit a dark contrast to Greenberg's obnoxious and inexplicable tantrums.

We found it hard at times to believe that this is the same Ben Stiller that starred in the hilarious outrageous Tropic Thunder and various other campy comedies over the past few years. That isn't to say that Stiller's performance was bad; in fact, he was so adept at playing the narcissistic neurotic that it's scary. It is to the credit of the three leads that the movie does not descend into full-fledged self-indulgence, but even their earnest acting cannot salvage the terrible directing. The humour was very dark and the pacing was bad, with no climax and an abrupt ending that saw the audience breathe a collective sigh of relief for finally being let off the hook - those that were not asleep, that is.