According to the BBC comedy Extras, Ben Stiller is an egomaniac, utterly self-absorbed and obsessed with the opening weekend box office take of his films. That was a comedy creation of course, and the Stiller in this film is almost the exact opposite – a drifting slacker trying to make sense of his life and trying harder to do not much. The only thing the two versions of Stiller have in common is that they are both unlikeable men, and it’s to Greenberg’s huge credit that 107 minutes in his company are always a complete pleasure.
Stiller is an unlikely hero of US indie slacker comedy, but here he’s a perfect fit, along with director Baumbach and co-writer and co-star Leigh. Baumbach is best known for the delightful, spiky Squid And The Whale, and Margot At The Wedding (which also starred Leigh). It’s a formidable team, and the result is an understated, surprisingly funny and punchily detailed look at a mid-life crisis.
Stiller is Roger Greenberg, a carpenter and former member of a rock band who is house-sitting his brother’s lovely LA home. Roger has been in New York for some years, and now is back to do ‘not much’ for six weeks. However, it’s not as simple as that – he has to look after Mahler, the family dog, who falls ill, he is constantly hassled by the LA lifestyle, writes letters of complaint, and worse, old pals emerge from the woodwork to make him face some truths in his life. There’s old band member Ivan (Ifans), now married to a ‘racist’ and with a kid, and Beth (Jason Leigh), whom Roger discovers he still has a huge crush on despite her clear lack of interest in him.
Then there’s the housekeeper, Florence (Gerwig), a girl who seems as fragile and as geeky as Roger is depressed and angry. They begin a hilariously awkward physical relationship, but that quickly fizzles out as Roger is too obsessed with himself to pay her any real attention. Their relationship is played out in an entirely believable, adult, detailed and sensitive way and never follows a predictable path.
Some may find Baumbach’s characters just too indie and naval-gazing to garner attention, but his great strength is in finding humour in just about any situation, however dark. Roger’s first attempt to swim a length of the pool is unbelievably funny, and his constant surliness and complaining – he’s always writing letters to Starbucks and American Airlines – is delicately written. The dialogue crackles and is consistently entertaining, but there is always a real character under there somewhere. Roger himself is actually a pretty awful man – numbed by anti-depressants, he drinks and smokes too much, is grumpy and rude, yet weirdly sensitive about himself – as his pal Ifans points out in one of the film’s best scenes.
Even the best scripts can only do so much, and in a story as dark as this a huge amount of skill is needed by the actors, and everyone here is on top form. Stiller is a revelation, constantly hunched into a coat even in an LA summer. He’s nerdy, brusque and at times unbearable, yet always watchable and vulnerable. His blast of dialogue on the effects cocaine has on him is expertly delivered. Ifans is on his best form as the long-suffering best pal – did Roger really sabotage their band or was it more complicated than that? Either way, his character has embraced adulthood far more than the child-like Roger. Then there’s Gerwig. Not since Jennifer Jason Leigh herself has an actress produced such a combination of hopeless directionless and utter charm – her ego is paper-thin, she is awkward, potentially unbalanced, yet utterly, completely beguiling. When Roger goes to see her sing in a tiny bar it’s so easy to see why he would fall for her, which makes his appalling behaviour to her all the more unforgivable. Yet forgive him we do.
There are a couple of overlong and talky scenes, especially when Roger tries to be cool at a party of kids and ends up being plain nasty, but that apart this has the perfect mixture of sweet and sour.
Overall verdict: Sweet, charming, sophisticated tale of a mid-life crisis which never resorts to sentimentality or easy laughs.
Reviewer: Mike Martin