The main characters of ""Greenberg"" seem to be desperately repeating the same brief moment of their lives that they're afraid to let go of—those glorious post-college years when you have your whole life ahead of you. But instead of getting a nosebleed or disappearing Marty McFly-style as they keep traveling backwards to relive and try to fix the past, they just seem hollow and empty.
The film begins as we meet the Greenberg family, frantically preparing for an important business trip and vacation in Vietnam as their assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig, ""Baghead"") attempts to get them on their way. She doesn't have to watch the dog because Roger Greenberg (Ben Stiller), brother to her employer, will be staying at the house to recuperate from his recent release from a mental institution. Once the family has left, Roger (who goes simply by Greenberg) strikes up a casual romantic relationship with the young assistant out of what seems like loneliness, and the pair gravitate around each other, unwilling to realize how much they need each other.
Florence is in her mid-twenties and hooks up with guys casually, unenthusiastic about getting too serious with anyone. Gerwig brings an aloofness to her character that dances between endearing and obnoxious, but like all the characters in ""Greenberg,"" it doesn't seem like the audience is meant to completely love or even trust her. Some of her scenes are so emotional, yet she seems so distant from what's going on that the juxtaposition can make us miss momentarily that we're supposed to feel sad for her, or angry. The end performance is so natural and yet whiny, so authentic and yet pretentious it strikes a singularity point that fuses the best and worst of mumblecore performances into a single character.
Merritt Wever (""Nurse Jackie"") gets a shout-out as Florence's best friend, the only person who seems willing to tell her that getting involved with a jerk like Greenberg is a bad idea. Her quips about him being a crazy old man are priceless, and remind us that despite Greenberg's attitude, he is in fact a middle-aged man.
If Gerwig makes a simple character complex in the performance, Ben Stiller crystallizes a complex character into a simple essence—he is an irredeemable asshole. He refuses to acknowledge that his life got off the rails in his twenties (when he botched up a major recording contract for his band), and perpetuates in a state of suspended animation where he's still a cool, carefree 20-something, not a fading middle-aged man-child. He instead insists that he is ""doing nothing"" on purpose, and acts bewildered that anyone would do anything differently. He lashes out at friends and family who remind him in any way that his life has passed him by—kids, new marriages, concerns of adulthood—and he buries himself in a prickly coating of bitterness and self-centered antics that keep him isolated from the truth of what people around him think.
The delivery on their romance is small, and too many will likely find the characters unsatisfying—Greenberg is a flat character in denial that he wants or needs anyone—but the film is decently acted, and Noah Baumbach succeeds in creating a cast of miserable, unlikeable people.
