Ben Stiller shows he can do more than be a whacky Jewish guy … again
Ben Stiller has had an interesting career so far. After becoming a critical darling for the one season of The Ben Stiller Show, Stiller became a star after directing (and starring in) Reality Bites. Positioned as an A-list comedian with There’s Something About Mary, Stiller has been box office gold as both an actor and as a director. With two franchises performing well at the box office, Meet the Parents and Night at the Museum, Stiller has sometimes shown that he has serious acting chops to go along with proven comic ones. Permanent Midnight was lauded but a box office failure, but Stiller’s performance was subtle and nuanced in a way that one wouldn’t expect from a guy who makes his living as the stock “neurotic” go-to actor in Hollywood. In the same vein Greenberg shows off the same chops in a similar manner.
Stiller is the titular character, a carpenter house-sitting for his more successful brother after a nervous breakdown. After he walked out on his band in his 20s, on the verge of superstardom, Greenberg has stayed in New York City and away from his native California. Charged with making a dog house for his brother’s German Shepherd, and in an odd romance of sorts with his brother’s personal assistant (Greta Gerwig), Greenberg is stuck at the point in his life where the road behind is longer and brighter then the road ahead of him. And for Stiller its proof that if he ever wanted to leave comedy behind and become his generation’s Steve Martin.
Nuanced and subtle, Greenberg is close to the usual sorts of characters Stiller plays but with one subtle difference: he has Noah Baumbach directing him. Instead of being stuck in a whacky situation where he has to overreact to everything around him, Greenberg is trying to figure out what happened to his life ever since the fateful day he walked out on his friends, including his college roommate and best friend (Rhys Ifans). Stiller gives Greenberg a sad nobility of sorts; he’s a man who has been broken down and forgotten, and he knows it.
His friends barely speak to him, unless it’s to remind him of the past and what could’ve been, and even his familial relationships are less then cordial. At 40 plus, the twilight of his youth is gone and now he’s coming to grips with it. It’s a sad performance that he never takes to any sort of extreme; he’s not going over the top with certain parts of the material (i.e. being a recent mental patient) and underplays most of what he’s given. His natural screen presence and charisma is subdued, as well, as we’re not dealing with Ben Stiller the movie star. And he has the right director to bring out this portion of his acting capabilities.
Baumbach is the kind of director suited for this sort of look without the rose colored glasses of our youth, perhaps using Greenberg as a vehicle for exploring the choices in his life that have led him to this point. It’s an interesting piece that’s almost autobiographical in a way; this is reflections on aging from someone who’s currently experiencing it as opposed to hindsight from a much older perspective or a theoretical construct from someone yet to experience it. Writing and directing the piece, Baumbach’s trademark look at the ugliness of life is an engaging and unique one. It often stays there for longer than it needs to, not falling into the trap of a film like Precious that uses it as a rod to beat down the audience, but sometimes appears headed to that territory. There’s no catharsis, no happy ending, only more life.
Greenberg states in the film his counter to “Youth is wasted on the young” is that “life is wasted on people,” a kind of sad summary to his existence. It’s in this sadness that we find ourselves, and it’s what makes Greenberg an interesting (if flawed) film.
Director: Noah Baumbach
Notable Cast: Ben Stiller, Greta Gerwig, Rhys Ifans, Chris Messina, Juno Temple, Mark Duplass, Jennifer Jason Leigh
Writer(s): Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh
