Review of Greenberg

The main mistake Noah Baumbach made is the key to the storytelling: I guess he decided to talk about emptiness with emptiness. Bad idea. If you talk about a vicious circle you're supposed to be able to break it, letting "light" come in and see things better. That's what analyzing should be. Greenberg stays in the semidarkness without a solution, and every day feels depressed because his life is empty and his life end up getting more and more empty because he's too depressed to do something about it. Baumbach puts some characters to enliven the world Greenberg lives in, but they're not strong enough either to lash him or to highlight differences between him and them. His best friend is useless and the girl he starts “to-date-not-to-date-maybe-he’s-dating-her” is as weak as he is. Though I appreciated some scenes (especially the funny ones) and Ben Stiller acting, in the end it’s a film that leaves nothing, no special feeling.