04-29-10 Movie Review: Greenberg

There are unfortunately no noncommercial movies showing from now till Wednesday, but at the Murdock at 536 N. Broadway, there is an introduction of a whole new kind of a thing – the Metropolitan opera, This Saturday at noon and henceforth whenever opera is available. The start is this Saturday with Rossini’s Armida, and there’s more if you’ll call 263-1665 or visit http://www.murdocktheatre.com for information. Armida sounds romantic even for an opera, with a story about a sorceress and her male prisoners on an island prison.

And commercially, we have a picture that seems simple enough but that I don’t pretend to understand in Greenberg.

Ben Stiller plays Greenberg, a man who refuses to allow life to happen to him, at least partly because he made a decision several years ago that he believes, perhaps mistakenly, ruined the lives of a number of his friends. So he has decided never to make any decisions again for the rest of his life, while still denying that he made that fatal one, or at least that it WAS a fatal one. He endlessly defends himself, if necessary using facts that don’t exist, continually analyzing every situation without bothering with facts that don’t support his predetermined theories.

He is confronted by Greta Gerwig, who has recently been wounded by her failure to use similar caution and who takes an opposite tack, but can’t get together, and neither seems to understand the problems enough to bring them into the open, so progress is pretty much cut off.

Stiller’s friend Rhys Ifans seems to understand what is going on, but has sense enough to keep quiet about a situation he knows he can’t really do anything about. And there the situation stands, or rather just hangs in space.

What we are to make of all this is what escapes me. There is a subplot about a sick dog that may give a hint, but I’m not confident enough to speculate about it.

But every individual scene and character seems utterly realistic, even while the long silences and stumbling dialogue as people don’t know what to say mounts to the level of a company mannerism. None of the characters are particularly appealing and action seems almost congealed, but at no point did I doubt that writer Jennifer Jason Leigh and her husband, writer-director Noah Baumbach, were getting on screen exactly what they wanted.

That’s honestly the best I can do on this one; I’m going to watch for other reviews that may help me, because Greenberg is an impressive piece of work, even if I can’t get the point.