Dosty Glory reviews "Greenberg" The first flim in the "Bama Art House Flim Series"

This latest work by Noah Baumbach gave me what all other films from the Indie champ have given: a decent time, but nothing much more or less than that.  The performances were charming, the shooting was perfection, and the story was offbeat with modest quirk.  It had plenty of great components but, as is often the case with these slice-of-life features, the result left me a little cold.

            Staring Ben Stiller in a “dramatic turn,” Greenbergis about a former musician returning to L.A. to watch his brother’s house.  He connects with some old figures in his life, writes snotty letters, and has a romance of sorts with his brother’s assistant.  Greenberg isn’t a particularly likable guy, and though it’s meant to seem as though he’s changed in the course of the film, he really hasn’t.  That’s fine, characters don’t really have to change, but I would argue they do need to draft a more significant note of interest than is exhibited here.  The fault there isn’t in the writing, it’s in the casting.  Stiller is fine enough in his genre, but merely an extended discomfort in this black-comedy field. In this part, Stiller kept the audience at arms length, too guarded for what the character needed to reach a note of naturalness and authenticity.  He was anxious and curt, not in a way that jived with the part but stemming from personal discomfort.  When working with supporting players like the delightful Rhys Ifans and the always lovely Jennifer Jason Leigh, Stiller looks miserably out of his depth, which distracts from the depths that Greenberg’s shallowness could be exhibited.

            Even with Stiller’s discomfort, it’s a good film that kept the audience engaged and laughing.  From the first sequence, however, I couldn’t help wondering why Greenberg was the one we were focusing on.  The film opens with Greenberg’s brother’s assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), running errands, getting instructions from her employer, and going to a party.  By the time Greenberg comes into the picture, he seems like an intrusion, not just on her life, but also in our accessibility to her life.  From that point on we don’t get the intimate look at Florence that we began with, instead only encountering her through Greenberg.  Yet when she does pop up, she seems to be up to far more interesting things and experiencing much deeper conflict than Greenberg could even dream.  Because of this, I left the theater feeling cheated.  For the first time that I can recall, there was a woman on screen that I could identify with.  She was just an average, early-twenties female with a job and an ex and a sense of sexuality truer to life than the even most admirable bimbos that waltz across the screen.  But instead of spending time with her, we’re stuck with one more story about a disaffected male, a guy who was a jerk and made mistakes and now has to answer for them.  When boiled down, where’s the interest in that?  He didn’t even offer any particularly interesting twist on the idea, just awkwardly shuffling through and fine in the end.  It seems such a shame for Baumbach to sacrifice something new and interesting for what we’ve seen all through the Indie-filmdom.

            Aside from subject focus, the next thing Baumbach needs to tackle is the exhibition of a little passion, some fire and verve!  Admittedly, I don’t have any clue how to gauge that, create that, or even articulately express why I don’t think he has a hold on it now, but I’ll suggest it all the same.  His movies always feel like they work so hard to be average and understated, that I wonder why he’s bothering to state them at all.  There’s plenty admirable in wanting to show the quieter sides of our existence, but they should be shown because they’re interesting or beautiful in their small way, not just because they’re small.  Obviously his mind is in the right place, if he could just get his heart to catch up.  Now that would truly be an amazing film.

-Dosty Glory 2010

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