Rent Greenberg (2010)

Unlikeable Characters - Greenberg review by CP Customer

What a strange film this is, Ben Stiller is largely unlikeable throughout the female lead seems to have little or no respect for herself, poor film.

Rude Boy - Greenberg review by Steve

Downbeat comedy of awkwardness from Noah Baumbach which is interesting more than actually hilarious. Its approach is to create an odd couple romance out of prickly, uncharismatic washouts. Ben Stiller plays an aimless carpenter, dog-sitting at his well-off brother's west coast sprawl while reflecting on missed opportunities.

And Greta Gerwig is a younger graduate with low self-esteem whose degree has bought her nothing better than a menial job as the brother's gofer. She's awfully compliant, but relatively normal. Stiller is just out of a mental hospital and has no idea how to engage with others. However, he does like to complain about everything.

And this allows Baumbach to script some observational comedy on familiar themes: Los Angeles v New York; the class/gender divide; having kids and getting older... None of this is especially witty, or even insightful. It's a middle age rites-of-passage about how it feels to hit your 40s without anything except the burden of regret.

The support cast led by Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Jason Leigh can't do much with underwritten roles. Where this scores is its deftness in creating this negativity and such antagonistic characters, without them being intolerable. Which may be an exercise in judgement from the stars who make this pessimism surprising easy to watch.