Greenberg (2010)
Greenberg(USA) Directed by Noah Baumbach Written by Noah Baumbach Starring Ben Stiller; Great Gerwig; Rhys Ifans; Jennifer Jason Leigh; Chris Messina; Mark Duplass; Susan Traylor
The film world is awash with debate over the current state of distribution. In recent years, a movement called Mumblecore has been defined by films made with ultra low budgets, shot on video (or 16mm film), using improvisational techniques, and starring mostly non-professional twenty-somethings. The name is derived from the fact that many of these characters speak in a halting, tentative way, uncomfortably relating to the opposite sex, forever “mumbling” their half articulated thoughts in an embarrassed, self-effacing manner.
While Mumblecore films are produced on paltry micro-budgets, forty year old writer/director Noah Baumbach has had his own trouble getting his indie offerings financed and to the screen. Despite the critical accolades much of his work has received, the audience for the personal projects he seems intent on creating is perceived to be of the relatively limited variety. Baumbach has a personal friendship with director Wes Anderson, and has collaborated on his screenplays for The Life Aquatic and Fantastic Mr. Fox (supplanting Owen Wilson as Anderson’s writing partner). His appeal is thought to be less wide than Anderson’s, however, and perhaps only his ability to cast stars has allowed him to continue to make theatrically released films at all.
Starting with Kicking and Screaming (1995), Baumbach has turned out a series of dialogue driven character pieces focusing on educated intellectuals who are sometimes witty, but most often not altogether likable. Baumbach has had his heartbreaks, including Highball (1997), a film in which he removed his name due to a dispute with producers. Low budgeter The Squid and the Whale (2005) brought him rave reviews, festival/ critics awards, and an academy nomination for best screenplay, but Mr. Jealousy (1997) and Margot at the Wedding (2007) easily elicited as much intense criticism as they did praise.
The son of two writers/film critics and husband of indie darling/actress Jennifer Jason Leigh (who is given producer/story/acting credit here), Baumbach has spent a lifetime immersed in books and film. His characters are often writers, and subjects like infidelity, depression, and artistic relevance recur throughout his work. He is clearly influenced by European art cinema, and like his friend Anderson, seems to have an affinity for British rock, retro styles from the 70s, and literature. Apparently, Baumbach has also recently become enamored with the Mumblecore movement, befriending the acting/directing Duplass Brothers (Mark appears here in supporting role) and employing director/actress/resident siren Greta Gerwig as his female lead.
Brooklyn native and resident Baumbach sets this film in Los Angeles. An ex musician who enjoyed a brief run of success in his early twenties, the titular Roger Greenberg is now a carpenter who has relocated to L.A. (an L.A. native, he has been in New York for twenty years) following his release from a mental hospital. Medicated, still reeling from his nervous breakdown, he takes up residence in the home of his rich and successful brother Phillip (Chris Messina), who has travelled to Vietnam with his wife and kids. It’s while crashing at his siblings expansive abode that Roger meets twenty-something Florence (Gerwig), a slightly awkward, naive, and wounded young woman who works as a babysitter and personal assistant for the family.
Roger is anti-social, neurotic, paranoid, and fairly seething with hostility. While beginning an odd romantic relationship with Florence, he also attempts to reconnect with his ex-band-mates, including old best friend Ivan (Rhys Ifans), and ex-girlfriend Beth (Jennifer Jason Leigh). He soon finds that the fixed ideas he maintains about the past are not even remotely shared by those he was closest with, calling into question his memory of that time, and thus the assumptions upon which he has constructed his rather desperate existence. The humor is biting, and though tightly scripted Baumbach’s writing was clearly influenced by Mumblecore depictions of fumbling conversations. The very speech patterns, as well as the weirdly cold sex scenes, smack of the work of Andrew Bujalski, Joe Swanberg, and the aforementioned Brothers Duplass.
Stiller, wild-haired and skinny, is as good as he has ever been, and Gerwig benefits from better production values, an actual script, and a director who knows actors. Her trademark naturalism is then thankfully enhanced as opposed to stilted, demonstrating that Baumbach knew what he was getting with her pretty, open face, blonde hair, and large boned, imperfect body, and had no intention of making her conform to a more stylized product or disrupting her easy, unaffected style. Her character is a kind of antidotal Annie Hall to Stiller’s nebbishy, though exponentially more hateful Alvy Singer, a marooned human being who can’t imagine why on earth this young woman might possibly be interested in him, let alone want to share in his decidedly uncertain future. At one point he even chastises her for not being “a divorced thirty-something with kids and low expectations”.
Shot by Harry Savides (Milk; Zodiac; American Gangster; Elephant),Gus Van Sant’s regular cinematographer, the film captures the wide open, sunny look of LA, which is contrasted by the New York City (of our imagination) that Roger (and Baumbach himself) is accustomed to. This fish out of water aspect of the film informs a series of running gags, and is also a metaphor (or perhaps an outgrowth?) of Roger’s inner life. Aging, alone, pathologically self-involved, and slightly off-kilter, Greenberg is fairly bursting with regrets from his past failures. Perhaps, in light of this fact, he also harbors a strange resentment for the younger generation. An avowed Luddite of sorts, who doesn’t drive, writes angry protest letters to corporations, among other things, Roger is opposed to change, the speed of modern life, and resents anyone who would expect anything of him.
Part of what is fascinating about Baumbach is his ability to secure name actors like Eric Stoltz, Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Nicole Kidman, and Ben Stiller to embody fiercely unlikable lead characters. Some of the vitriolic response to Baumbach’s work seems to arise out of a reaction to these arrogant, semi-abhorrent intellectual types, though this very fact separates Baumbach from his peers, differentiating his work from other modern American directors of cinema. The wrongheaded and misguided criticism levied at this talented auteur for failing to signpost and tailor his films to fit into mainstream conventional constructs illustrates the pervading influence the Hollywood product has on this country’s audiences and critics alike. Baumbach should be treasured in the same way we look upon The Coen Brothers, Wes & PT Anderson, and Van Sant - directors who are among the best we have to offer.