Greenberg

Plot synopsis:
Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig) walks the Greenberg family dog, Mahler. She picks up Phillip Greenberg's dry cleaning and heads back to his house, where the entire family is packing for a trip to Vietnam. Phillip (Chris Messina) explains that his brother, Roger, will be staying in the house while they are away, and he asks Florence to help Roger if he needs anything. His wife, Carol (Susan Traylor), confides that Roger has just been released from a hospital after suffering a nervous breakdown. Roger is a carpenter and has been hired by Phillip to build Mahler a dog house. It is implied throughout the film that Roger actually does little work, and Carol is skeptical about him actually finishing the project.
When Roger (Ben Stiller) arrives, he calls Florence to ask about the people swimming in the pool. Florence explains that they are neighbors who are allowed to use the pool. She comes to the house to pick up her paycheck and feed Mahler. She has a very brief and awkward conversation with Roger, before offering to pick up groceries for him. He gives her a two-item list, requesting whiskey and ice cream sandwiches.
Roger's friend Ivan Schrank (Rhys Ifans) stops by and invites him to a barbecue at the home of their mutual friend Eric Beller (Mark Duplass). At the party, Roger is uncomfortable, and Eric is visibly hostile towards him. He runs into Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh), an ex-girlfriend, and she agrees to meet up with him for some drinks. He explains that he is in Los Angeles to simply do nothing for a while. She replies that it is brave for a man in his mid-forties to have no ambition.
Meanwhile, he calls Florence to meet up for a drink. Since as a New Yorker, he does not drive, she picks him up. They stop at her apartment to pick up her purse, which she forgot. Roger comes on to her, and they begin to have sex. Having just come out of a long relationship, Florence stops Roger, not wanting to have meaningless sex.
Eric and Roger have dinner, where Eric vents his anger over the fact that Roger declined a major label recording contract that their band was offered fifteen years ago. Eric marvels over the fact that Ivan will even talk to Roger anymore, given how devastated Ivan was by losing the contract. Roger insists that conforming to the commercial contract would have been impossible for the band.
One day, Roger notices that Mahler is lethargic. He calls Florence to take them to a vet, where they learn that the dog has an auto-immune disease. Roger did not want to get involved with Florence, but as they encounter each other during Mahler's treatment, they keep escalating their relationship, with Florence falling hard for Roger.
When Roger meets up with Beth for drinks, it is her turn to be uncomfortable. She barely remembers their relationship; whereas, he remembers the most minute details from their time together. Roger muses, to Beth's astonishment, that they would have probably gotten married and had kids. When Roger asks her out on a date, she says it would be a 'terrible idea' and abruptly asks for the check.
After Florence and Roger finally have sex, they end up in an argument, where he yells at her for always coming back to him, despite the fact that he does not want to get involved. The next day, Roger remorsefully calls her, and Florence is getting drunk in her apartment alone. She confesses that she is due to have an abortion the next day. Roger convinces her to let him take her to the clinic. Since he does not drive, Ivan has to drive Roger and Florence to the clinic. She undergoes general anaesthesia and stays in the clinic overnight.
Back at the house, Roger's college-age niece, Sara (Brie Larson) has turned up. She is heading to Australia the next morning with her friend, Muriel (Juno Temple), and they throw a house party with dozens of their friends. Roger does drugs with the kids. Ivan shows up and gets into an argument with Roger, where his hurt feelings over the record contract come up. Roger confesses that he had no idea that his personal concerns about the contract would put a stop to the entire deal, and he admits to feeling an immense burden of guilt over it. Both Ivan and Roger bemoan the fact that they have ended up in lives that they did not plan to have; however, Ivan has made peace with his. Before leaving he tells Roger that he had heard from Florence that Roger had been hospitalized, which Roger had never brought up. Having had a similar experience he laments he could have helped him and in disgust says that they never talk about anything good or meaningful. Dejected, Roger ends up calling Florence's phone and leaving her a long voice mail where he confesses that he really likes her.
The next day, Roger's niece invites him to Australia, and he jumps at the invitation. He convinces the neighbors in the pool to take care of Mahler, but on the way to the airport, he changes his mind. Instead, he goes to pick up Florence at the hospital, and they return to her apartment. The film closes as she listens to Roger's voice mail.

Tags: romantic, comedy, storytelling

Review:
During that time, be meets and falls in and out of like for his brother's executive assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig, who's also magnificent), who's just as awkward as Roger Greenberg.The bulk of the film covers their relationship on one track and the events of Greenberg's past that have led to his existential where-am-I ponderances.
(which, if you've read the other reviews here, you know is a massive understatement).Let's start with the two obvious stumbling blocks to loving this rather astonishingly good and (for some) altogether life-affirming and lovable movie.-- The main character is pretty much a jerk.-- There's no plot.Now, realize: the main character is *supposed* to be unlikeable.
So let me explain.Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller in the performance of his life) is by no means completely unlikeable.
Very simply, if you like Roger Greenberg enough to have empathy and sympathy for his plight, if you can see past the sarcastic surface to the deep pain underneath, if you can recognize a little bit of yourself in him, then you are going to root for him to get his act together, to cut all that nonsense out, to start to understand himself --in short, to start to recover some sanity, to find the first cobblestones of the path to some kind of happiness.Well, that's what happens, and it's wonderful to watch.
(That it's possible to watch the movie and not notice it happening is obvious from some of the reviews here, including one that criticized the ending as incomplete; in fact, this may have the best and most perfect last line of any movie I can think of.)If you didn't much like _Sideways_ or _Up in the Air_, I can guarantee that you will hate _Greenberg_ (I mean, imagine those movies, but with no plot, too!).
I know many girls who talk, dress and act just like her Florence, who she makes come alive on just the right naturalistic levels.Writer-director Noah Baumbach made two previous films very strongly akin to this.
It portrays a man bordering on mental instability *very* well.Ultimately, this movie is similar to Woody Allen pics in affect, although much less "funny." But it still has that "world through the eyes of a neurotic" gimmick, as well as the laissez-faire plot progression.Ben Stiller also deserves praise for a great, "real" performance as Greenberg, and he is supported by a mixed cast (some great, some poor).I recommend this film to anyone familiar with OCD, anxiety, or anyone over 40 who asks "what happened?".
Just as he's turning forty, Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) finds himself with no real friends, no significant other, and no actual purpose in life.
In drama, there's a fine line between a character who is intriguingly different and one who is just annoyingly self-indulgent, and "Greenberg" crosses over that line with dismaying regularity.Still, the performances are excellent – this is probably Stiller's best dramatic work to date – and the inconclusive ending is impressively brave enough to erase a multitude of earlier sins..
As does Florence, (Greta Getwig) his brother's personal assistant who isn't exactly a model of happiness and mental health, herself, and Ivan (Rhys Ifans), Roger's long-suffering old friend and band mate, who is having family troubles of his own.
That said, I am not sure I can recommend this movie to very many people, despite all the good things I am about to write.This is the first Ben Stiller role that actually seems to fit him.
Instead she comes across as a very real 25 year old trying to make sense of life - especially her own.In addition to Ms. Gerwig, Rhys Ifans provides outstanding support work as Greenberg's long ago band mate.
When I started watching it and learned that Noah Baumbach (who had previously made the excellent 'Margot at the Wedding') was the director, I knew this was going to be a different kind of movie that would probably reveal a different side of Ben Stiller's acting.
Many have described this to be for Stiller what 'Punch Drunk Love' was for Adam Sandler and 'Stranger Than Fiction' was for Will Ferrell.Baumbach's 'Greenberg' is a character driven piece that centres on Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), who recently left a mental asylum and is back in town to housesit for his brother who's away on holiday.
Roger (Ben Stiller) and Florence (Greta Gerwig) are two annoying whiny wishy-washy people that alternate between intercourse and arguing without rhyme or reason, and I simply could not bear another scene of these two whiners that began around the 60 minute mark.Reminds me of a SNL skit "The Whiners", which was kinda funny for the first minute of the sketch, but then got old real quick.
Doing this well as based on his own experiences and life on this earth as 'The squid and the whale' and especially 'Margot at the wedding' (One of his best and most original efforts) showed us and with the inspiration of Jon Brion coated movies like 'Punch-drunk love' and 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' Noah Baumbach has made a painfully real and awkward but surprisingly sweet, accessible and most detailed movie about not knowing when it's time to change as time moves unnoticeable fast.Roger Greenberg essentially reminds me of myself, as when things don't go my way and it's my fault expect others to notice and help me, or I freak out.
With this, Ben Stiller strips himself of his normal mainstream straight guy 'Meet The Parents' routine and give us his actual geeky, uncomfortably weird, held back, extremely passive aggressive, frustrated, pretentious inner-self, and for most of 'Greenberg' I forgot you were Ben Stiller, Ben Stiller excellent.Though 'Greenberg' takes a more accessible and familiar, less off-putting approach, not to say 'Greenberg' isn't extremely awkward at times, there are none-the-less, slight glimpses of Noah's other films in 'Greenberg' that obviously give an edge to the other oddball romantic misanthrope movies I munched and maybe fun for Noah experts to notice.
Ben Stiller plays a very idiotic and rude unlikable character named Roger Greenberg who is the worst developing character I have ever seen as well as the people around him who disappear from the film after they are mentioned or shown!
Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is single, forty-ish and at a crossroads in his life, finds himself in Los Angeles, house-sitting for six weeks for his more successful/married-with-children brother.
But old friends aren't necessarily still best friends, and Greenberg soon finds himself spending more and more time with his brother's personal assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig), an aspiring singer and also something of a lost soul.
In fact, there's a sad and melancholic tone throughout the entire film and it doesn't really light up as many viewers were perhaps hoping for, which for me, made the all experience much better, because, let's face it, life isn't always great and happy endings are rare.The script is incredibly refreshing, the dialog is brilliant and the direction was absolutely impeccable, really some of the best I've seen lately.
Even the somewhat abrupt ending, which at first disappointed me but now seems completely fitting, shows how this film refuses to follow any conventional formulas.As I've mentioned before, Stiller was great as the lead character but so was Greta Gerwig as Florence.
I remember hearing good things about this film quite some time ago – mainly about relating to Stiller being in it and not playing to his usual character but doing something more "worthy", things like that.
They are well written and well delivered as characters but the film becomes like them and I was generally put off by how the whole thing started to seem smug and inward looking whereas what I really wanted was someone to come along and just shake them till they got a hold of themselves.As annoying as I found his character, Stiller is actually very good; he totally gets his character and he plays it consistently and without any suggestion of ego of being the major Hollywood player that he is.
The look of Baumbach's film is good but as writer/director he just seems happy to sit and watch his characters as they consider their own belly-buttons and on this occasion it just didn't do enough to work – he got a good performance from Stiller for sure, but beyond that?
Based upon a story by actress Jennifer Jason Leigh who also had a bit part to lay here, and directed by Noah Baumbach who share screenplay credits, Greenberg is a tale that deals with the anxieties of the 40 year olds who are starting to wonder how half their lives had passed them by without anything to show for, and how much courage they have to try and reinvent themselves for the remaining half.
Usually at a mid-life crisis, one would find a certain itch to want to break away from the norm and routine, but scratching that itch would depend on how severe it is, and how hungry one actually is in wanting to embark on change and do something different.Despite its title being the last name of its male protagonist, Greenberg opens with a typical day in the life of Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig), the ever capable personal assistant to the Greenberg family headed by Phillip (Chris Messina), and because this part of the Greenberg family is heading to Vietnam for a vacation, Phillip's brother Roger (Ben Stiller) decides to move in temporarily from New York to Los Angeles for 6 weeks in order to do nothing, and in return for his brother's provision of a roof over his head, Roger's carpentry skill will be called upon to build a doghouse.But this film is not about showing off his carpentry skills, but more of how he builds up new relationships with the household mutt, and Florence to whom he has taken a strange fixation and fancy to, while on the other hand still holding a candle for his ex-flame Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh).
Heck, even the door falls sick to some little known disease, and many faceless characters come and go without having any emotional resonance with Roger.Which makes him yearn companionship in whatever means possible, even if it means sleeping with, or trying to, with his brother's assistant Florence, who somehow likes Roger for the very low key way of leading his life built on the basis of doing nothing, without the pressures of expectations, or imposing one's will on the other.
The only characters I liked in "Greenberg" was the brothers dog.As the movie drags on we meet "Florance" Stiller's first love interest played by Greta Gerwig.
Even if his protagonist hasn't really got much depth, he remains somehow resiliently himself, and he may turn out to be memorable.This film has more warmth as well as more nastiness than the meandering, tiresome 'Margot at the Wedding,' and at least tries to go into more depth on one character than the charming but slight coming-of-age prelude 'The Squid and the Whale.' There are strong contributions from Jennifer Jason Leigh (collaborator on the story), as a former girlfriend who firmly rejects Roger's suggestion that they might start things up again; and from Rhys Ifans as Ivan, Roger's (former) best friend and former musical associate --the sometimes rakish Ifans is very solid here as a man who's grown up..
Watching it now my wife is totally into this mess I can't turn it off oh god please let the power go out maybe a couple of guys will pull a home invasion on us I can give them Redbox's copy of the movie along with our cash and the leftover percocets from my finger surgery seriously this bitch stretches time Greenberg holds the solution to interstellar travel maybe if one plays it backwards you could traverse light years in seconds hey maybe Steven Hawking will roll up and invade my house and take my cash and Redbox's copy of the movie and work out the whole time warp thing seriously he could read the script aloud faster than this actual film progresses.
I did not find anything to like about Roger (except his brutal honesty), and not even at his most eloquent during a party where coke, of the granular kind, loosens his tongue to give a cultural tongue-lashing to partying 20 somethings around him.At this defining point in the film, where directors usually have characters give some philosophical import to the film, the young people have no comeback, thus no dialogue about the difference in generations or whatever Baumbach wants thematically.
I wouldn't call myself a fan of Noah Baumbach, more just that I respect his work, but unfortunately "Greenberg" doesn't raise my opinion.I could like Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) as a character - he's mentally ill, speaks his mind and you can definitely see some of yourself in him.
Greenberg (2010)I've come to like Ben Stiller a lot, but here the movie just struggles and falls very flat.
She lifts it out of some kind of needlessness—the plot fizzles, Stiller plays out his contrived role without much conviction, but Gerwig make subtle and warm and interesting every scene she's in.So, along those lines, I highly highly recommend "Frances Ha," which makes the most of Gerwig (and which is a good, offbeat, indie film in every way).
For me they absolutely do, and although there are probably a hundred films like it, Baumbach finds a way to make "Greenberg" feel fresh, significant, and genuinely funny, which is more than I can say for any of the year's purported "comedies." You know what, never mind "City Island," maybe this is the film you should see instead of "Hot Tub Time Machine.".
During Roger's six week stay we watch him write letters of complaints to companies, engage in awkward sex with Florence and have tantrums for now good reason.Pretty much every character in this movie is rude and unhappy as hell.
The laughs were few and mostly unintentional.The main character is 40 year old failure Roger Greenberg (played by Ben Stiller) who is staying at his wealthy brother's house in Los Angeles while the brother and his family are off on vacation in Vietnam.
Roger also encounters his brother's personal assistant, Florence Marr (Gerwig), whose carefree attitude he finds immediately alluring.Noah Baumbach's film is one that brims with potential, especially given the glamorous facade of its setting and the comedic potential that someone like Ben Stiller brings to each of his roles.
Ben Stiller stars as the film's title character, Roger Greenberg.
Greenberg is a new and refreshing film by Noah Baumbach starring Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig and Rhys Ifans.Rarely does such an uneventful plot work in a film, but here it is done beautifully.
Ben Stiller stars in the title role as Roger Greenberg, a 40 going on 41 year old guy who is trying to sort out his life while housesitting for his brother.
Both he and costar Greta Gerwig as Florence have fascinatingly real characters with diagnosable problems and that's the chief strength of the film.Roger Greenberg is 40 and telling himself he's going to do nothing for awhile.
Greta Gerwig, who has previously been in Mumblecore movies, is just totally and tonally flat here as the would-be girlfriend.It's like Baumbach took the ingredients of a film like by Allen, or just by anyone making a thoughtful character tragi-comedy, but didn't see how he could really make it interesting past some of the sour observations of present culture and old age and life in general.
The way he treats Greta Gerwig's character was inexcusable.But maybe that is just good acting by Ben Stiller.Still, overall, the movie is a depressing look at pretensions, posturing and fake facades (is that redundant?).Then again, having lived in California, Greenberg well represents the cynical easterners who go to California to complain about everything.
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.
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 two main characters he reaches out to are his brothers' assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig) and his former band mate Ivan (Rhys Ifans).I recall years ago reading a review by the great Pauline Kael of a movie called "The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne", a movie that deals with a lot of the same issues that "Greenberg" does.
While staying at his brother's house, he meets Florence (Greta Gerwig), his 25-year old assistant, and starts developing a) a crush on her, b) a certain nostalgia for the past, and c) a sudden reality check on the ridiculously empty road his life has taken him.Stiller turns in a powerful performance as the egotistical, tiresome but intelligent Greenberg, a man as remarkable as he's quirky.
I still think this movie is very interesting and is worth a watch for the character study, Greta Gerwig's performance, and for Ben Stiller who tries a different kind of role this time and does a good job.
"Hurt people hurt people" mid-20s Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig) tells 40-ish Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) in this quirky movie with a lot of psychological hurt although not without whimsical humour.
Like Greenberg's life (he tells people, that he is trying to "do nothing"), the film has no plot and no resolution with a sudden and very open ending but, in the same way that Florence tells Roger "You like me more than you think you do", perhaps you'll like the movie more than you think you will..