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Title: Greenberg
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| CONSUMER ADVICE |
Parents, there is some strong language and graphic nudity. Recommended for ages 17 and up. |
If you’ve been reading my reviews for awhile you’ll know that I’m not Ben Stiller’s biggest fan. I feel he’s a one trick pony that plays one pathetic wimp after another. In some ways “Greenberg” is not much different from previous characters Stiller has played, and in some ways this is about as far from those previous characters as you can get. The movie stars stiller as Robert Greenberg, a man who has recently been released from a mental institution. At the age of 50 Greenberg is stuck in life. At one point the lead singer of a rock band that almost got signed to a record deal, he walked away from that dream and destroyed not only his life but the lives of his band mates and friends.
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No, walking away from the contract isn’t the sole problem in his life, but it seems like the thing that he could never let go of. Years later he’s house sitting for his much more successful brother who is vacationing with his family in Vietnam. He walks around the house not knowing what to do with himself. When he goes to a barbeque where old friends get together most of his friends don’t want to talk to him, and he spends most of the time standing in the yard alone while life is around him. Not that Greenberg is a sympathetic character by any stretch. He’s usually not nice and he does more then enough to insure his loneliness and isolation is well felt by others. Or - in other words - he’s a pathetic loser.
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Unlike previous pathetic losers that Stiller has played, I actually found myself caring what would happen to Greenberg. Yes he’s a polarizing figure, but there are still small moments and glimpses that show’s that he cares on some fundamental level for himself and others. Whenever he confesses a problem you can tell he’s thought long and hard about it. He strikes up an affair with his brothers assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig), who see’s the good beneath all the bad. Yes, he makes her feel lousy, and in no way does a nice woman like her deserve to have to put up with someone like him. But she changes him, starts to bring him out of his shell. This isn’t reveled or spelled out in Hollywood fashion, but just by plain observation.
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When he confesses his weakness to her over a long phone call we realize that this is the first time he’s truly examined some of the problems he has. Stiller plays Greenberg so convincingly that the movie might have been severely hurt if he hadn’t been in it. The movie was written and directed by Noah Baumbach, the man responsible for “The Squid and the Whale.” He shows a knack for making movies with interesting character studies, deep human observation, and endings that seem to be confusing until you take the film in as a whole. Stiller may still be playing a loser, but now he’s loser worth caring about. Someone to root for. Like Tom Hanks was born to play Forrest Gump and Paul Newman to play Cool Hand Luke, Ben Stiller was born to play Greenberg. Hopefully he will get the chance to play more roles like this, as this is easily his best film and shows he is a good actor.
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