Greenberg
Noah Baumbach / US, 2010 / 107 min.
To mark the Dutch premiere of While We’re Young, EYE is screening earlier films by New York filmmaker Noah Baumbach. The title character of Baumbach’s sixth feature film (Ben Stiller) returns to LA after a nervous breakdown to look up some old friends. At the same time he’s trying to handle his neuroses. While We’re Young is a humorous character sketch with some very precise, hard-hitting tragic moments.
The neurotic forty-something Roger Greenberg is an avid writer of eloquent letters to airlines, the mayor and Starbucks to point out wrongs that must be set right. In the meantime his life isn”t going anywhere and he”s haunted by unfulfilled ambitions.
He daydreams about the past when he was still in his twenties and might have become somebody in the world of music. In real life, though, he let that chance slip away. Now he must learn to accept the life he never wanted to have. Encounters with friends from the past lead to painful situations. He does take a liking to his brother”s assistant Florence Marr (Gerwig), but she”s not that easy to get on with, to put it mildly.
In this tragicomedy, Noah Baumbach, experienced chronicler of the lives of neurotic forty-somethings, shows another side of Los Angeles, the city that”s been filmed to death. The screenplay for this subtle character sketch was written by Baumbach”s then wife Jennifer Jason Leigh. Greta Gerwig is magnificent opposite Ben Stiller as the dawdling Florence in this chafing comedy.
Details
Director
Noah Baumbach
Production year
2010
Country
US
Original title
Greenberg
Length
107 min.
Subtitles
NLD
Format
35mm
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