Greenberg - DVD Review

Luckily, I did not see this in the theater. My daughter and I caught this trailer when we saw The Kids Are All Right. We almost went back and to see this piece of crap.

Honestly, I did not like a single thing in this film. I love little indie films about people finding their way in life, reconnecting and maybe mending some fences along the way. This was not one of those films.

Ben Stiller plays Roger Greenburg, a 40-something slacker who comes from New York to Los Angeles to house sit for his brother. There’s more to the job than house sitting though. Roger wants to use the opportunity to re-connect with family and friends and maybe move back. He basically only has one friend who’s willing to hang out with him; everyone else in his past remembers him as an asshole and quickly sees that he hasn’t really made any large strides in changing that area of his life.

Roger’s brother also has a nanny/personal assistant, the young Florence played by Greta Gerwig. She is also around the house taking care of minor details while the family is away. She is finds Roger appealing but distant. The film centers are their interaction and possibly budding romance.

Ben Stiller, who is a good dramatic actor, comes off as such a jerk that you really have no sympathy or desire to see him turn his life around. If the point of this film is portray those friends you’ve clearly outgrown and they do nothing but bring you down and suck the life out of you, well mission accomplished. However, I fail to see why I would want to watch this drip of guy for almost two hours.

I keep hearing all these great things about Greta Gerwig who plays Florence. Maybe she is a good actress; I’ll have to wait to see her in something else. No, I’m not going to sit through No Strings Attached just see if she’s any better in that film. Here, she seems to have attended the Kristen Stewart School of Acting. She talks low and appears to have recently got up from a long nap. I really hate young female movie characters with this personality. They seem to meandered through the films and will fall for the male lead simply because he’s the male lead, even if he’s a jerk or treats them like crap. I’m much more inclined to root for a characters like Emma Stone in Easy A or Zooey Deschanel in 500 Days of Summer. These sleepy, go-with-the-flow-even-when-the-guy-is-a-jerk characters are a huge turn off for me. It gives the impression that guys don’t have to try that hard and they’ll still find a good women who will see the one tiny shred of redeeming quality he may inhabit.

Lastly, could this movie make sex look any less appealing? Geesh, I’m not expecting Cinemax, but the characters looked like they have sex when there’s nothing else left to do. Could we feel a little bit of heat between our main characters? Really, it was like, “Oh we should have sex now.” Sigh…“Let’s get to it.”

So I can’t recommend this one. If you disagree with me, I sure like to hear what made this film work for you.