A good movie

Even though I’m not a huge fan of Noah Baumbach’s work, I still enjoyed his previous movies so I was really eager to check this flick as well. Apparently, Baumbach has become some kind of specialist on neurotic characters and Roger Greenberg was probably his worst creation so far. To start with, I can understand that many people wouldn’t care for this character. Indeed, like most mental patients, he is a terrible egomaniac wrapped up in his messed up world completely incapable of any form of compassion. Actually, Greenberg reminded me of 2 persons. First of all, he reminded me of Daniel Johnston, a (supposedly) talented song-writer who messed up a couple of record deals and ended up a couple of times in a mental institution. The second person I was reminded of was actually myself. Indeed, his obsessive and erratic behavior was highly recognizable and confrontational for me and there were a couple of times I thought I was hearing myself talking… I don’t think I’m so messed up though. I mean, I have a steady job, a wife and kids but I think I do manage to make the people around me often completely crazy. So, I thought that the main character was really interesting and Ben Stiller really impressed me as he easily gave here one of his best performances. Greta Gerwig was also really good, she gave a very subtle performance and I’m really curious to see her again in something else. Eventually, two characters felt flawed, really real, and were much more interesting than the usual stereotypes provided by Hollywood. Still, I can’t say the whole thing was mind-blowing though. Indeed, to be honest, it is not really funny and, basically, you spend almost 2 hours with a really unlikeable guy and it can be tiresome. Anyway, in spite of its flaws, it was pretty good and it is definitely worth a look, especially if you like the genre.

7/10