Greenberg

Greenberg is so utterly unlikeable, vapid, and unredeemable, I didn't finish the movie. Time I'll never get back.

Ben Stiller made it to whole different level. I loved it.

You can see the how the calm and minimal movie it is from the poster. Life is very simple and this movie can illustrated.

The pompous letters of complaint the main character writes to everyone, from Starbucks to a pet taxi company, are amusing. So I kept hoping to feel a growing affection for Greenberg, but ultimately there wasn't a shred of anything to like about his thoroughly unpleasant personality. Nothing made me remotely care what happened to him. Yes I know LA people are a certain way. In which there can be humor. But it gets old quick. At the end I wished I'd checked out after 20 minutes when I first had the urge.

Tag line: A movie about nothing that makes fun of LA people.

Indy Stillmeister. Not bad. It's your typical indie movie with no real plot just a bunch of people with problems communicating to one another. It's ok. The 'Greenberg' character is interesting and his relationship with Florence drives the film, but it is a little boring. It's watchable though. Rating: 6.5/10

Rubbish, do not recommend.

Ben Stiller actually does a great job in this one. Noah Baumbach has such an unusual way of making people's ordinary lives and dynamics interesting. This is no different. Stiller plays the quirky New York brother of an upper middle class LA man. Stiller, fresh from a mental hospital, housesits while his brother is in Vietnam on vacation. He becomes involved with Florence, played by Greta Gerwig, who is his brother's assistant. She is also unusual in her attraction to this odd, relatively unkind man, but she is really, really likable in this. It is, like all Baumbach's movies a look at relationships and people. Stiller is horrible and great in this all at the same time.

Spend 2 hours with a despicable, nihilistic narcissist and watch him be awful to everyone around himself. There is nobody to like in this film. It is a very accurate portrayal of a malignant narcissist underachiever. But that does not make for a good film. Perhaps a director could also do a very accurate portrayal of someone who is cruel to animals. Would you want to watch it? We watched it a little more than halfway through and decided to end the pain by shutting it off.

In this effort from director Noah Baumbach, Ben Stiller plays Roger Greenberg, a repugnant narcissist and nihilist who continually dwells on his messy past, refusing to learn from his errors or take any form of responsibility for what went wrong. It's understandable that many would have a justifiably negative reaction to the film simply due to the fact that the protagonist has no apparent redeeming values. However, Baumbach's witty script keeps things interesting as the audience waits patiently for Greenberg to either have some sort of epiphany regarding his shortcomings or just jump off a bridge and Rhys Ifans and Greta Gerwig are great in supporting roles.