Fridae

Noah Baumbach knows how to make a comedy. He’s so sure of himself that he’s decided to make Greenberg a high concept comedy, or a situational anti-comedy, if you will. A quick rule of thumb is that when characters behave badly and make poor judgements without realising it themselves, it's a comedy. In Greenberg, the concept is turned on its head: we have characters behaving like they were in a comedy (with classic poor judgements and perfectly timed bad timing) – and they quickly realise it but are for the most part incapable of breaking out of that cycle. It’s as comic as it can get, but as painful and depressing too.

Taking the eponymous role is Ben Stiller, the current king of comedies in American film. His character is a major screw-up, wrecking his college buddies’ chances of fame two decades ago, running away to pick up an inconsequential career, and is now back in town recuperating from a nervous breakdown, writing letters of complaint to the local newspapers while taking care of his brother’s dog and home, and dating their sitter.

Normally, with a crank meets a relatively saner person, you’d expect a romantic comedy (remember As good as it gets?). But Baumbach has other plans, like turning this film into the antithesis of Seinfeld. While the film follows the 6-week stay of Greenberg in LA one might argue that the film is really an anti-comedy about nothing at all. Like flies on the wall, we follow Stiller on one social misadventure after another, getting treated to variations of Baumbach’s anti-comedy concept.

It’s not that the characters or even Greenberg himself are stock comic characters – however neurotic, they’re pretty much ordinary people, frighteningly normal in their hangups. It could really be about your little faults or my little faults, snowballed into a comedy where we're immense screw-ups precisely because of these faults.

Perhaps the best way to tell Greenberg is to film it as a documentary or a cinema verite piece – which Baumbach has done. The naturalistic style, coupled with the flair for comic timing of its cast, and an incredible performance by Ben Stiller, makes this one of the best and most unique comedies of this decade.