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Ben Stiller is a very skinny man. He’s not emaciated by any means, and presumably he remains well-fed, but he seems incredibly skinny these days. And with his longish, curly hair, his head seems bigger than it used to be. I’m not complaining – a man’s diet and grooming are his own business – but this new physique doesn’t sit well on him.
Gone are the days of Tropic Thunder muscularity, replaced with a slim sense of irony and just enough salt in his pepper to make him look like an intellectual. That’s probably the best way to describe Greenberg – it’s Curb Your Enthusiasm on steroids with added dollops of quirkiness. As friendly as that mixture sounds, however, it’s not always a good thing.
Greenberg (Stiller) is a man with absolutely no likeability. Having been recently released from a mental hospital, where he was placed because his ‘legs stopped working’, his wealthy brother decides to enlist him as a house-sitter while his family goes on holiday to Vietnam. So begins a suburban odyssey of rediscovery, as Greenberg encounters and begins an up-and-down relationship with his brother’s assistant, Florence (Greta Gerwig), and reconnects with old friend Ivan (Rhys Ifans). Ivan and Greenberg were band-mates some 15 years ago, and would have been signed were it not for Greenberg’s heavy-handed suspicion of the record company. He also constructs a dog house for his brother’s German shepherd. The fact that it stands unfinished (to say nothing of the dog almost dying) is probably a metaphor for something.
The film hinges on Stiller’s Greenberg being only just likeable enough for us to care for him. However, instead of a depressed man engaging in a noble attempt to rebuild himself, we’re presented with a pissy old misanthrope, swinging from laboured niceties to hurtful outbursts at gestures of normalcy (at the Mexican waiters singing ‘Happy Birthday’ at his birthday dinner, and Florence’s long-winded stories). To be fair, presenting the character with sympathy was never going to be easy, and Stiller gives it his best attempt. And there are some genuinely funny moments, such as Greenberg’s partaking in drugs at his niece’s party and insisting on choosing the music, and the following aborted journey to Australia. The stand-out acting, however, is Rhys Ifans’ as Ivan, who presents a wall of calmness and beleaguered solidarity to Stiller’s character, until he can no longer tolerate Greenberg’s abusive comments about his ex-wife.
The director, Noah Baumbach, made his name with the equally introspective drama The Squid and the Whale, and has frequently collaborated with fellow director Wes Anderson, whose fondness for quirky characters borders on fetishism. This association definitely shines through, with an overblown sense of emotional dysfunction and subtly communicative dialogue, and even some trademark Anderson camera work. There is, however, such a thing as being too quirky, and while the absurdities and personal ticks of the characters begin as endearments they soon become annoyances. Conversely, sometimes the film isn’t quirky enough, and while such patented emotional desperation may work in one of Anderson’s optimistic comedies, partnering it with a more acerbic and misanthropic sense of humour doesn’t really produce the comedic goods.
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