Greenberg For those of you who have seen Noah Baumbach’s work like Margot At The Wedding and The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg will be covering familiar ground. His realistic take on life doesn’t really provide escapist entertainment but his characters often have to the ability to stick in your mind.
Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is a transplanted New Yorker recently released from a stint in a mental hospital. He’s house sitting for his brother and doing his best not to be seduced by California’s breezy lifestyle. He meets his brother’s nanny/personal assistant Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig) and they make a connection.
Gerwig is equal parts radiant and frustrating as the needy Florence and you find yourself singing her praise and condemning her gullibility in equal measure but you grow to like her and care about her circumstance. Roger is substantially more work.
It’s a nod to both Stiller and Baumbach’s craft that by film’s end you have found that you have invested more into these characters than you realize and you end up leaving the theatre hopeful for their future and happy that your own world doesn’t float in a sea of dysfunction. Rob Hudson www.focusfeatures.com
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