Greenberg (2010)

Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Written by: Noah Baumbach/Jennifer Jason Leigh

It’s been a while since Ben Stiller has done anything that more “indie” minded people have liked. Tropic Thunder was probably the last one…maybe. I might have to go back to The Royal Tenenbaums, actually.

Before I get into this one, though, let’s hit a couple of previews.

KICK-ASS–You have no idea how fucking much I want to see this movie again. I can’t wait. Go see it with me. PLEASE!!!!

WALL STREET: MONEY NEVER SLEEPS–I still don’t understand who was clamoring for a continuation of Gordon Gecko’s story. Maybe Oliver Stone who’s had nothing but failure for a while. This could have been interesting…back in the 90s. Now it just kind of seems like old news. Who knows, though? Maybe it’ll kick Stone in the stones and make him do something good again. I doubt it, though. It just doesn’t look very compelling.

Now onto a movie that actually mentions the original Wall Street.

Roger Greenberg (Stiller) is an asshole. Not only that, but he’s an aging hipster who doesn’t really see himself that way. He thinks that he’s much cooler than any of the “cool” people these days.

He’s been in New York for a few years now, but he’s sick of it. He’s moved back to LA to take care of his brother’s place while he and the family are in Vietnam on vacation. Roger figures that he’ll just sit around and do nothing for a while. Hang with the old crew, watch videos and do nothing.

That’s when he meets Florence (Greta Gerwig), his brother’s personal assistant. She’s 25 and pretty vulnerable. She can’t seem to stand up for herself on any issue. That makes her perfect for Roger because he can just kind of abuse the shit out of her without her saying “Boo!”

He doesn’t really mean to be abusive. He just has so much pent up rage that it’s hard for him to not abuse everyone in his life. Roger and Florence’s relationship starts off awkward and gets more awkward as time goes on.

Noah Baumbach and Jennifer Jason Leigh are, themselves, kind of aging hipsters. Jennifer has been on the edge of hip since the early 80s. She’s never had the mainstream success of her 80s cohorts, but she seems to be fine with that. She’s an amazing actress who takes great roles. Noah has made a few films, but his last two are the only ones that have gotten him any kind of box office. (Although his first, Kicking & Screaming, got the Criterion treatment.) He hangs out with people like Wes Anderson and Jason Schwartzman. His movies are quiet indie darlings with better casts and stories than money potential.

Could this be Noah and Jennifer telling the rest of us to not be such assholes to younger generations of hipsters? People in their 40s automatically look down on the younger crew of people who are now in the same place that they were in twenty years before. I’m not 40 yet, but I see it happening with my own friends. Austin is and always has been a town for hipsters. Those of us who grew up here in the 80s and 90s now see it being taken over by the current crop of 20 year olds and we’re not just jealous. We’re desperately trying to hang on to what we had. How DARE these kids come in and make the whole town into what THEY want?

Greenberg isn’t a bad guy. He’s just angry and doesn’t know how to channel that anger into something positive. That makes him human. He’s an asshole that only a movie goer could love. If we knew this guy in our real lives, we would probably hit him and never look back as he laid in the alley, broken and bleeding. He treats his friends like crap and he potential girlfriend even worse. This could be Stiller’s best performance.

Greta Gerwig is part of that younger indie film crowd that Noah and Jennifer are trying to make sure that they don’t hate on. She and Mark Duplass (who is also in the film) and Joe Swanberg have been making mumblecore films for the last few years. They’re coming up in the world and the fact that they are in Baumbach’s latest pretty much means that they’ve been accepted into the older generation’s fold.

For someone of my generation or slightly older, this is a pretty significant film. Is it amazing? Maybe not. Is it really good? Yes. Absolutely. It’s a movie that had to be made by someone in his early 40s who has been on the outskirts of the mainstream for a while. It’s worth a look and it could be a movie that reveals more layers the more you watch it.