Movie Review: Marriage Story

Marriage Story **** ½ / *****

Directed by: Noah Baumbach.

Written by: Noah Baumbach.

Starring: Scarlett Johansson (Nicole), Adam Driver (Charlie), Merritt Wever (Cassie), Laura Dern (Nora Fanshaw), Wallace Shawn (Actor), Ray Liotta (Jay), Alan Alda (Bert Spitz), Julie Hagerty (Sandra), Robert Smigel (Mediator), Kyle Bornheimer (Ted), Mark O'Brien (Carter), Mickey Sumner (Beth), Azhy Robertson (Henry), Brooke Bloom (Mary Ann), Hannah Dunne (Agnes), Annie Hamilton (Becca), Martha Kelly (The Evaluator). 

 

Noah Baumbach’s Marriage Story opens with Nicole and Charlie each reading a letter they wrote about the things they love about the other person, accompanied by images of them doing those things. It is an exercise suggested by their therapist who is going to guide them through their separation – but also a quick way for Baumbach, and his two extraordinary stars Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver, to establish Nicole and Charlie as real people, who do normal things and seem happy – who are about to spend the next two hours desperately unhappy. Marriage Story is an ironic title because the film is all about their divorce – all about how two well-meaning people who still care about each other can let things get away from them – and do things to deliberately hurt each other, even if they regret it right after. It is Baumbach’s best, most mature film to date – and contains two of the very best performances of the year – and an amazing ensemble cast.

 

There have already been many pieces written about “whose side” Marriage Story is on – and I suppose one could play that game if they so choose. I don’t think it adds anything to the movie to do so however, as for the most part, I do think that Baumbach strives for fairness in his portrayal of both of them – both of them either make mistakes, or do things you may well feel are unfair or cruel – and both of them are victims of the others mistakes and unfair and cruel things. The movie really is about how divorce does this to people – turns them into people they never thought they’d be. And so it goes.

 

Nicole and Charlie have lived in New York for 10 years, and have an eight-year-old son, Henry, who they both adore. He is a theater director of weird, off-Broadway plays – and talented enough to win a MacArthur Genius Grant during the course of the movie. She was a teen star who came to New York and met him, and then threw her lot in with his weird little theater company – growing as an actress, but also lending some name brand recognition to it, and contributing a lot of her own ideas. She is originally from L.A. – and always wanted to spend more time there during their marriage – her mother and sister live out there, they spend summers there, Henry was born there, etc. As their marriage is falling apart, she takes Henry to L.A. to film a pilot – and when Charlie comes to visit, serves him with divorce papers. This isn’t a surprise – they know its coming – but her plan to move to L.A. is. He always expected them to movie back to New York. And so the divorce proceedings begin in earnest.

 

So lawyers enter – on her side is Nora (Laura Dern, continuing her streak of amazing performances) – who is great at her job, and knows just how hard it is for a woman to go through this. On his side there is two – Ray Liotta as an asshole, willing to do anything, say anything and get nasty, and also Alan Alda, who seems to be more on the same page as Charlie – at least until he senses things are turning ugly. They all add something to the movie.

 

But the MVP’s here are Johansson and Driver – two great actors, arguably delivering the best performances of their career. You may feel early on that the film is being too hard on Johansson – and then comes an amazing monologue she delivers to Nora about just why she felt she had to leave, why she needs to do this for herself, and it’s an amazing and remarkable moment. The scene goes on a long time – way longer than most other directors would dare let it go – and Johansson holds every second of screen time. Driver will get his own moments as well of course – including the already much talked about rendition of Sondheim’s “Somebody” that is beautiful and heartbreaking. And, of course, there is eventually a fight sequence – where the two of them start out trying to be nice, and then devolving into nastiness pretty quickly – both saying absolutely awful things, but Driver taking it to another level.

 

Before Marriage Story, I would say that Baumbach’s best film was The Squid and the Whale (2005) – another film about divorce, but that one was from the outside – the perspective of a teenager watching his parents devolve into monsters. Now, 14 years and a divorce himself later, Baumbach tells the story from the outside in. It is very much in keeping with Baumbach’s style – the Woody Allen inspiration is still there, although Baumbach’s film is more complex than most of Allen’s stuff – more deeply felt, and fair. It is Baumbach’s best film to date – a film that is difficult to watch, because you like these people, and they are suffering so much you want to look away. But, of course, you can’t.

Movie Review: The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) **** / *****

Directed by: Noah Baumbach.

Written by: Noah Baumbach.

Starring: Adam Sandler (Danny), Ben Stiller (Matthew), Dustin Hoffman (Harold), Elizabeth Marvel (Jean Meyerowitz), Emma Thompson (Maureen), Grace Van Patten (Eliza Meyerowitz), Candice Bergen (Julia), Rebecca Miller (Loretta Shapiro), Judd Hirsch (L.J. Shapiro), Adam Driver (Randy).

 

Noah Baumbach has softened a little bit in the 12 years since he made his first truly great film – The Squid and the Whale. That films – and the two that followed (Margot at the Wedding, Greenberg) were fairly harsh and unforgiving of its characters – punishing them, and at times, it seemed, punishing those in the audience who were watching. The softening started perhaps a little in Greenberg – his first collaboration with Greta Gerwig, who delivered a witty, funny, humane and overall tremendous performance in that film – and co-wrote and starred in two other Baumbach films – Frances Ha and Mistress America as well (the other Baumbach film during that time, While We’re Young is perhaps Baumbach’s cranky side coming through – as it’s a story about how annoying millennials can be when you’re older – and could be read as personal, given the age difference between him and Gerwig, who have been together for a while). But I noticed his softening most in his latest film – The Meyerowitz Stories – because in it, Baumbach offers at least a little forgiveness and understanding to characters he never used to be able to do that with. The aging father in the film – Harold, played in his best performance in years by Dustin Hoffman – is as insufferable as any of Baumbach’s other patriarchs – but it’s tempered with more understanding. There is also, undeniably, more sympathy for Harold’s children – on the late side of middle age, but still competing against for the affection of a man who is too self-involved to notice them.

 

There are three Meyerowitz children – Danny (Adam Sandler), is the oldest, and the only one who was the product of Harold’s second marriage. Danny is getting divorced and sending his beloved daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten) off to college at the same time. To a certain extent, Danny is another of Sandler’s overgrown man children – he has a temper, and can yell as loud as any Sandler character, but it’s more tempered with sadness and regret this time around – and less borderline psychotic. It’s a reminder of just how good Sandler can be when he works with a good director who pushes him. Danny’s half siblings are Matthew (Ben Stiller) – who fled to L.A. as soon as he could, and became a successful financial planner to the rich and famous (Adam Driver has a great cameo as one of his clients). Matthew worries more than a little that he’s too like his father. Then there is Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), whose primary family role seems to be peacekeeper. It’s too bad that Jean is the most underwritten of the major roles in the film, because Marvel is fantastic as a woman who allows the men in her life to treat her as an afterthought, and yet still be there for them (“Because that’s what a good person does”). They all playing supporting roles in the life of Harold (Hoffman) – who was once a sculptor of some (limited) renown, who believes that she is still doing the best work of his career – after his retirement from teaching. He lives with Mrs. Meyerowitz #4 – Maureen (Emma Thompson), playing a kind of drunken hippie – a role that doesn’t require someone of Thompson’s immense skills, but benefits from them anyway.

 

The title of movie evokes a short story collection – and to an extent, so does the structure of Baumbach’s movie, which concentrates on one sibling at a time, before bringing them together once Harold gets ill (the structure also kind of resembles Jonathan Franzen’s The Corrections – which Baumbach tried, unsuccessfully, to turn into a TV series a few years ago. The film shows moments in the lives of this family, not so much as they grow, but as they come to accept their place. Harold will never change – he is incapable of it, and doesn’t have the self-awareness to even see the damage he’s done. Hoffman is terrific here, digging into that a little bit.

 

The maturation of Baumbach helps his own art here. I still think I prefer The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding to The Meyerowitz Stories – yet I also think that the kind of anger and punishing streak in those films would have eventually grown stale, and overly harsh had Baumbach made a career out of them. Eventually, you have to forgive your parents – even if they are assholes. The Baumbach who made The Squid and the Whale didn’t know that – the one who made this film, does.

Movie Review: De Palma

De Palma

Directed by: Noah Baumbach & Jake Paltrow.

Featuring: Brian De Palma.

 

There are a few ways in which documentaries centered on the work of one director can go – it can be the kind of fawning treatment, meant only foe diehards, that really should be nothing more than a DVD special feature (like Altman or Milius were a few years ago), or something like Noah Baumbach and Jake Paltrow’s De Palma – which, yes, is still for diehards, but it is a fascinating film in its own right, and contains a tremendous amount of insight into the films of Brian De Palma – from the man himself – as well as observations about Hollywood, from a man who has been there for more than 40 years. De Palma is mostly clear eyed about his own work – admitting when he made mistakes, or when something just didn’t work, but also being proud of his accomplishments – of which there have been many.

 

According to IMDB, Brian De Palma has 40 directing credits, and the film De Palma is basically the famed director talking about each and every one of them (they mostly skip the few shorts he made in school, but after that, the list is exhaustive). From his first Hitchcock homage, Murder a la Mod (1968), through subversive indie comedies like Greetings (1968) and its sequel, Hi, Mom! (1970) – which were early breaks for Robert DeNiro), through a disastrous first experience in the studio system – Get to Know Your Rabbit (1972), which De Palma says didn’t work, and when he told the studio how to make it work, they fired him, through the indie shockers Sisters, Phantom of the Paradise and Obsession, and then returning to the studio fold with Carrie (1976) – and then on and on, the film is full of observations, and De Palma pulls no punches. He’ll tell you how Cliff Robertson was an asshole on Obsession – how he realized Genevieve Bujold was stealing the movie from him, and did everything possible to undermine her. Or how he had to ban Oliver Stone from the set of Scarface, which Stone wrote, because Stone was trying to direct the actors. Or how David Mamet refused to work on The Untouchables after a certain point, so he had to do things himself. Or how Robert Towne wanting the climax of Mission Impossible to be a bunch of guys in a box car taking off their masks. De Palma admits that sometimes he has been hamstrung by the material – he doesn’t really like The Fury (1978), which made him do a car chase, which he hates doing, or how he had to completely restructure Raising Cain in the editing room, because it wasn’t working. He’ll admit his mistakes – he doesn’t dispute the fact that The Bonfire of the Vanities doesn’t work, but he does dispute the much made argument that he didn’t get it. He got it just fine, he just didn’t think that since he had Tom Hanks as the lead, that he could make a movie that cynical and depressing, or make Hanks that deplorable – so he lightened it, with horrible results. He knows Mission to Mars (2000) doesn’t really work – and it looks bad in parts, but that is, he argues, because they ran out of money. In regards to that film, he also argues why most CGI heavy blockbusters today look the same – it’s because the big effects sequence are pre-visualized, and not by the directors, but by effects houses, and they cost so much, that directors don’t really have the ability to go back and ask for something else. Ever wonder why every blockbuster seems to climax with a bunch of “stuff” crashing into other stuff, as building collapse, etc. That’s the reason.

 

One of the positives, and negatives of a movie like De Palma, which only questions the director on his own work, is that you end up with only one perspective. When I watched Hitchcock/Truffaut a few months ago, I wondered why there were no female directors questioned on Hitchcock’s work – which, many have argued, often bordered on, and occasionally crossed right on into, misogyny. The same can be said of De Palma’s work – but he mainly brushes off such criticisms. I would have liked to see dim delve more deeply into the sexual politics of Dressed to Kill (1980) for instance – a film, that is in many ways a stylistic masterpiece, but whose treatment of a trans character would make it impossible to make today. Or, delve a little deeper into the sexual politics of Body Double (1984) – one of my absolute favorites of his, but one that does feature a woman being killed by a giant drill (De Palma’s answer to that – that the drill had to be so big, so it could go through the floor where the main character would see it, is both an interesting practical note, but also a little bit of a copout) – but also, undeniably, has a great role for Melanie Griffith – her first great one, as a porn star, who completely owns and controls her sexuality. There is more to say about the sexual politics in his films, but De Palma doesn’t seem too interested in saying them.

 

Still, there are tons of great notes on the making of his masterpieces, like Carrie and Blow Out (my two favorites), his constant battle with the ratings board, or his regrets over something like Causalities of War (1989) basically being ignored at the time it came out (it’s one that I think still requires a critical re-evaluation). My one major regret is that it seems like once Baumbach and Paltrow get De Palma’s thoughts on CGI and Mission to Mars, they’re pretty much done with him, and the film. The Black Dahlia gets only a minute or two, Redacted even less, and I don’t think Passion is even mentioned by name. Worst of all, the film pretty much skims right by Femme Fatale (2002) – which would rank in my top five of all De Palma films, but which they don’t really discuss.

 

Still, De Palma is a fascinating document of De Palma’s career – a reminder of how great he can be given the right material (in the past two weeks, I’ve re-watched both Blow Out and Body Double – and loved both), and how to build a career in Hollywood. A career like De Palma’s could only happen at precisely the time it did – any earlier, and he’d be too shackled by the studio system, any later, and they wouldn’t give him the money needed to make such bold, provocative movies. He has had a wildly inconsistent career – but a great one.

Movie Review: Mistress America

Mistress America
Directed by: Noah Baumbach.
Written by: Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig.
Starring: Greta Gerwig (Brooke), Lola Kirke (Tracy), Heather Lind (Mamie Claire), Michael Shear (Tony), Michael Chernus (Dylan), Jasmine Cephas Jones (Nicolette), Cindy Cheung (Karen), Kathryn Erbe (Tracy’s Mom).

There is something lacking in Noah Baumbach’s Mistress America that prevents it from being as good as it could have been – and it’s difficult to quite put my finger on what it is. Once again, it teams Baumbach up with Greta Gerwig – his off-screen girlfriend – who is as always a delight to watch as a performer, and who as Baumbach’s co-writer seems to counteract his more natural cynicism and bitterness. It also has a wonderful performance by relative newcomer Lola Kirke – who is really the lead of the movie – and who matches Gerwig every step of the way, which isn’t easy. In fact, all of the performances in the film are quite good. I think where the movie ultimately fails, a little bit, is the pacing – which just doesn’t keep up. Baumbach is trying to make a screwball comedy here – but the movie doesn’t quite zing the ways it needs to – especially when we get to the second half of the movie, where we are stuck, along with the characters, in a big house out in Connecticut. This sequence has some of the films best moments to be sure – but it really does drag the movie to a halt, especially when people start monologuing. The movie is only 84 minutes – but it feels a longer. These problems don’t quite sink the film – but it comes close.

The film stars Kirke as Tracy – an 18-year old University student, in her first semester, in New York City, who wants to be a writer, but isn’t sure she’s any good at it. She also has trouble making friends – and ends up spending most of her time alone. Her mother is getting married over Thanksgiving weekend, and suggests that Tracy reach out to Brooke (Gerwig), the 30 year old daughter of the man she is marrying, who also lives in the city. Gerwig plays what could be described as a “manic pixie dream girl” – as she is a lifeforce that rejuvenates Tracy when she sucks the younger woman into her world. There’s only one problem with that – Brooke is kind of insufferable – overly self-involved, creative, but flaky – a woman who can make you feel great one moment, and horrible the next. Tracy to a certain extent realizes this – she bases her next short story on Brooke, and is rather merciless in her depiction of Brooke (more so than Baumbach and Gerwig are) – but cannot help but love Brooke anyway. Why? Perhaps because Brooke isn’t really any better.

Baumbach is in familiar territory here – his characters are often like the ones in Mistress America – charming, funny smart and also self-involved assholes. Films like The Squid and the Whale (2005), Margot at the Wedding (2007) and Greenberg (2010) are all films that mix extreme discomfort with humor – as the main characters do horrible things to each other. Greenberg – which was Baumbach’s first film with Gerwig – did mark a turning point though. His last three films – Frances Ha (2013), While We’re Young (2015) and now Mistress America are similar to his earlier films, but somewhat lighter and breezier – more accessible to be sure, even as they tap into the similar terrain.

For me, Mistress America is the least successful of these films in a while. I think part of the problem is that while Gerwig and Baumbach write two terrific female roles – Brooke and Tracy – they do not really give them anything to do. So they get forced into a kind of superficial plot – where they are drawn together, than ripped apart, than come back together because of a series of contrivances, etc. Gerwig and Kirke are never less than enjoyable to see on screen – and quite often much more than that. But the final half of the movie – where things are going crazy just never quite goes crazy enough. Lots of characters are introduced – and some are interesting, some not so much, and the situation is overly contrived.

Mistress America was a bit disappointing when compared to other Baumbach films to me. It feels like another draft or two at the screenplay stage could have helped a hell of lot. Still, it’s always a pleasure to see Gerwig do her utterly fearless comic performances – and Kirke is terrific as well. They movie doesn’t live up to them – but you have to give it credit for trying.

Movie Review: While We're Young

While We’re Young

Directed by: Noah Baumbach.

Written by: Noah Baumbach.

Starring: Ben Stiller (Josh), Naomi Watts (Cornelia), Adam Driver (Jamie), Amanda Seyfried (Darby), Charles Grodin (Leslie Breitbart), Maria Dizzia (Marina), Adam Horovitz (Fletcher), Brady Corbet (Kent), Matthew Maher (Tim), Peter Yarrow (Ira Mandelstam), Dree Hemingway (Tipper), Ryan Serhant (Hedge Fund Dave), Peter Bogdanovich (Speaker).

 

The films of Noah Baumbach have always been very hard on its characters – sometimes, perhaps, a little too hard, especially since Baumbach is making comedies. His characters are flawed, and unlike many American Indie films, Baumbach’s films don’t let their characters off the hook – they are a collection of narcissistic, self-involved, navel gazing, pathetic jerks in many ways, but they are ones that Baumbach at least seems to understand, and even like – perhaps because many of his films have roots in autobiography (likely including this one as well). At his best – like The Squid and the Whale (2005) – Baumbach makes a film that is both insightful, funny and painful. It’s a tricky tone, one he doesn’t always pull off for the entire movie – and While We’re Young is a perfect example of that. The first hour is classic Baumbach –a little lighter and breezier than most of his stuff, but still filled with the same insight. The final 30 minutes or so takes a darker, more cynical twist, which perhaps would have worked better had Baumbach changed the tone of the movie a little bit to match its new found cynicism, instead of trying to keep things bobbing along with the same comic spirit. There is still a lot to love about While We’re Young, but if Baumbach had stuck the landing better, he may have made one of the year’s best, instead of just a really good comedy.

 

Josh and Cornelia (Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts) are a childless, married couple in their mid-40s, who are somewhat drifting. All their friends have kids, and have drifted away from them into the “cult of parenting”. Josh is a documentary filmmaker, who has been working on the same film “about power in America” for nearly a decade, most of it centered on an intellectual that Josh admits is kind of boring. Cornelia works for her father, Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin) – a famous documentarian in the Frederick Wiseman/Maysles Brother vein – and even though Josh and Leslie should get along, they basically hate each other. Josh and Cornelia are basically in a rut – that is until they meet Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). In their mid-20s, but married, Jamie is a documentary filmmaker himself – and professes to love Josh’s work (he made to buy a VHS copy of it from eBay, but whatever). He runs her own artisanal ice cream business – and, of course, they live in Brooklyn. Jamie and Darby re-energize Josh and Cornelia, in scenes that scenes that are both comic, and more than a little sad. Josh and Cornelia don’t realize just how pathetic they can look, trying too hard to recapture their youth that has slipped away. But Baumbach doesn’t mock these two characters – at least not entirely. He makes it clear just why these two may want to go back and start again in their mid-20s, in revelations that are sad, without being overly manipulative.

 

The movie gets its plot from a documentary project Jamie is working on. He has finally given in and got himself a Facebook page, and his plan is to make a documentary about him going to interact with the first person who he no longer knows in real life who wants to be his Facebook friend. It sounds like a lark – but as the project takes shape, it becomes something deeper and perhaps even great. But to Josh, it all sounds perhaps a little too good to be true.

 

Stiller and Watts are great in the movie. It would have been easy to make fun of their characters for wanting to go back in time to their 20s, but Stiller and Watts don’t do that. The play the movie straight, which at times may have been a challenge, as Baumbach sometimes strays a little too far into obvious comic set pieces (like a retreat, led by a shaman, that turns into a vomitorium). They make these two into real people, who simply want to escape from themselves for a little while – and in Jamie and Darby, they see versions of their younger selves – something the younger couple make easier by being “into” all things retro – like VHS tapes and board games, and everything else from Josh and Cornelia’s youth. Seyfried and especially Driver are very good as the younger couple as well. Driver has shown time and again how charming and comedic he can be, without looking like he’s trying at all, and he does so again here. This time, though, that charm is masking a shallowness – and even a cruelty that neither Josh nor the audience see coming (it’s the cause of the last act twist, that never quite feels real). The younger couple isn’t as well defined as the Josh and Cornelia however – they live in the older couple’s idealized view until reality comes crashing down – and to a certain extent, Baumbach is guilty is being a cranky old man yelling at the entire younger generation (to give Baumbach credit, he does acknowledge this in the movie itself) but it mainly works.

 

The last act is an opportunity missed in many ways. After a movie spent not quite realizing why Josh and his father in law hate each other, the movie gives a reason, without exploring it in any way, which is a shame given that it doesn’t give Charles Grodin enough to do (and if Grodin wants to browbeat Stiller on screen, than the fact that Stiller starred in the awful The Heartbreak Kid remake, the original of which was Grodin’s finest hour, then so be it). It also goes perhaps a little hard on Jamie – given then information we see anyway. Had Baumbach decided to really dig into these multi-generational divides, he may have had something great. Instead, he goes for a couple of cheap laughs – like Stiller on rollerblades.

 

Still, While We’re Young works remarkably well for most its runtime. There is a darkness to this film that for much of its runtime is masked by the comedic tone, but it subtly merciless the more you think about it. The film, like last year’s Listen Up Philip by Alex Ross Perry, is very much in the old school, Woody Allen vein – while at the same time being more self-aware than Allen’s films, more critical and less forgiving than Allen normally is. The more I think about While We’re Young, the harsher its critique really is. That Baumbach is able to do that, while making what is essentially a light and breezy movie is an accomplishment. Had he stuck the landing, it would have been even better – but most directors can’t even get this far.

Movie Review: Frances Ha

Frances Ha
Directed by: Noah Baumbach.
Written by: Noah Baumbach & Greta Gerwig.
Starring: Greta Gerwig (Frances), Mickey Sumner (Sophie), Michael Esper (Dan), Adam Driver (Lev), Michael Zegen (Benji), Charlotte d'Amboise (Colleen), Grace Gummer (Rachel), Patrick Heusinger (Patch).

Greta Gerwig is one of the most talented, smart, funny, adorable actresses working right now – although pretty much only Noah Baumbach has given her roles that allow that full potential to be realized. She worked for years in Mumblecore movies – that were mostly insufferable, except for her presence. Her performance in Baumbach’s Greenberg (2010) was the best thing about a very good movie – while I admired Ben Stiller’s performance in that movie, and found him a suitable character to be at the center of a Baumbach movie, I kept wishing the movie would instead focus on Gerwig’s Florence – an even more fascinating character, and not quite the picture of female perfection we have come to expect in movie like Greenberg. That movie brought her wider attention – and since then, she’s been cast as the quirky friend in the Natalie Portman-Ashton Kutcher romcom No Strings Attached (2011), the love interest for Russell Brand in the remake of Arthur (2011), the awkward leader of a trio of college girls trying to help their school in Whit Stillman’s Damsels in Distress (2012), and the cheated on girlfriend in Woody Allen’s To Rome with Love (2012). None of those movies came close to capturing Gerwig’s awkward, funny, smart, adorable persona – they essentially wasted her talents. Perhaps that’s why she co-wrote Frances Ha with Baumbach – because this is the perfect vehicle for her and her talents. And if there is justice in the world, should make her a star.

The film is shot in black and white and has a visual style that recalls early Godard or Truffaut, and because it’s set in New York will remind other viewers of Woody Allen’s Manhattan – all three directors seem to be touchstones for Baumbach here. It stars Gerwig as Frances, a 27 year old graduate from a good school, who is deluding herself in two ways – the first that she will ever become a full time dancer in the company where she has spent 5 years as an apprentice (if you haven’t made it by the time your 27 as a dancer, you’re not going to), and the second is that her college best friend Sophie (Mickey Sumner) will be her best friend and roommate forever. “We’re practically the same person!” Frances tells anyone who will listen to her. The audience knows that Frances is deluding herself on both of these counts – and should be clear to Frances as well, the way the company director Colleen kindly drops hints that she should find something else, or get back into choreography, and the way Sophie cruelly dumps Frances on the subway to move in with another girl with the lame excuse “You know I’ve always wanted to live in Tribeca!”.

In some movies – okay, probably most movies – this would make Frances an annoying and frustrating character to spend an entire movie watching. But what separates a great movie like Frances Ha from a horrible movie like last year’s The Comedy, is not only how clearly the movie sees Frances, but also just how plain likable she is. Everyone loves Frances – even if they pity her. Throughout the course of the movie, she’ll move from one temporary house to the next – the apartment with Sophie, the apartment with two trust fund “artists”, one of whom she goes on a date with, although he doesn’t work out because he will sleep with anything that walks, and one she probably should date, but is too messed up to, her parents’ house at Christmas, the couch of a fellow dancer, a Parisian apartment for two days, her old school for the summer, and then finally, her own place. The movie marks the time by showing us these different spots along the way, as Frances is gradually stripped of her delusions.

The movie is humorous throughout – from the opening fight and breakup between Frances and her boyfriend, to the way she and Sophie compare sexual notes about their partners (“He could only finish with me lying flat on my stomach – all the important pieces are covered”), to an almost painful dinner party scene, where Frances hears news about Sophie that apparently everyone else knew except her, and reacts as if she was just punched in the gut, yet tries to keep smiling throughout. Frances Ha does many things well, but perhaps above all, it shows the changing nature of friendship – as Frances gradually has to except that her friend Sophie is now with “Patches” – even if he likes to come in her face, and she quits her good job in publishing to follow him to Japan, and eventually admits that she is miserable with him during a long drunken night in which Frances thinks everything is returning to “normal”, only to once again have it taken away in the harsh light of day.

Frances Ha is refreshing in many ways – it’s funny, but in a smart way, like the best Woody Allen films. And yet, this is a film about a woman – not a Woody Allen woman or a picture of female perfection, but a real woman, flaws and all. It’s also nice to see a movie about New York where money is actually mentioned – when Frances mentions she’s poor, her trust friend Benji tells her “that’s offensive to actual poor people” – but when you’re unemployed, have no money, and have middle class parents who can’t afford to let you live the life of an artist in New York, you’re poor. And the movie has one of those glorious musical moments in film, where you know as you’re watching it you will never be able to hear the song without thinking of that moment in the film – in this case, Frances dancing though the streets of New York set to David Bowie’s Modern Love.

The only complaint I have about the movie is that I think it ends a little too easily. I’m not quite sure I believe that everything would work out quite as quickly as everything works out in Frances Ha. And yet, I find that to be a minor complaint – and one I don’t really mind. By the end of the movie, you’re rooting for Frances – and it’s nice to see her happy.

Movie Review: Greenberg

Greenberg *** ½
Directed By: Noah Baumbach.
Written By: Noah Baumbach & Jennifer Jason Leigh.
Starring: Ben Stiller (Roger Greenberg), Greta Gerwig (Florence Marr), Rhys Ifans (Ivan Schrank), Jennifer Jason Leigh (Beth), Chris Messina (Phillip Greenberg), Susan Traylor (Carol Greenberg), Blair Tefkin (Megan), Mark Duplass (Eric Beller), Jake Paltrow (Johno), Brie Larson (Sara), Juno Temple (Muriel), Merritt Wever (Gina), Zach Chassler (Marlon), Mina Badie (Peggy).

If I was ever to make a movie about a mild mannered guy who goes on a crazed shooting spree, I think I would cast Ben Stiller in the lead role. He so often makes such broad comedies – both good (Tropic Thunder) and bad (Night at the Museum), it is easy to forget that there is a real actor beneath the surface. Stiller’s latest film, Greenburg, functions in much the same way that Punch-Drunk Love did for Adam Sandler – that is a talented director (in this case Noah Baumbach) essentially deconstructing Stiller’s comic persona and showing us the deeply messed up person beneath it. It is easy to laugh at Stiller when he blows his top in a movie like Meet the Parents when he is simply yelling at an airline employee – much harder to laugh at him when he’s playing Roger Greenberg, a man just released from a mental ward because he snapped, and is yelling at the kind, sweet Florence (Greta Gerwig) simply because she told a story that went nowhere.

Greenberg has come to LA to stay at his brother’s house while he, and his family, take a vacation to Vietnam. Greenberg grew up in LA, but moved to New York years ago to try and follow his dream of being a musician. Things haven’t worked out, and he now makes a living as a carpenter. One day, he simply stopped functioning and had to go to a mental hospital for a while. He thinks that by getting away to LA for a while, he will be able to put it out of his head and move on. The problem is that LA is full of his past – his former band mates (including Ivan, played by Rhys Ifans who has been beaten down by life) who he screwed up a record deal for, and an ex-girlfriend (Jennifer Jason Leigh) that he has never quite gotten over, and now maybe getting divorced. There is also Florence, his brothers assistant who he can call if he needs anything at the house. She is 15 years younger, pretty and lost in her life. She likes Greenberg – or most honestly, pities him, and that pity eventually turns into liking him. This despite the fact that he is prone to going into rages. He isn’t violent when he goes off on his tangents, but he is angry.

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach, Greenberg is another one of his comedy/dramas about smug people. His The Squid and the Whale was a great movie about two New York intellectuals getting divorced who drive their kids crazy. He followed that up with Margot at the Wedding, which was a brave, although not entirely successful examination of a sister relationship. Greenberg would fit right in with his other characters, who see themselves as somehow smarter than everyone else, despite their very obvious character flaws. The films of Baumbach are a study in awkwardness between the characters who don’t quite like each other, but are never quite able to say what is on their mind.

The movie is also about the generation gap between Greenberg and Florence, and near the end between Greenberg and his college age niece. It seems odd that Florence, out of college only four years, seems to have much more in common with Greenberg than she does with Greenberg’s niece. In a way, Greenberg is trying to recapture his past throughout the movie. He likes Florence, but doesn’t truly take any steps in their relationship until Leigh’s Beth rejects him (in perhaps the most painful scene in the movie, Greenberg asks her out, and she tries to downplay her rejection of him, but it’s still stinging). He then tries to latch onto Florence, who reminds him of Beth back when he screwed things up with her. When things with Florence seem not be going very well, Greenberg retreats further – doing coke and pit with his niece and her friends. But for Greenberg, he really cannot go home again no matter how hard he tries.

The movie is carried by the performances of Stiller and Gerwig – and to a lesser extent by Ifans and Leigh. Ifans still hangs out with Greenberg when he comes to town, even though in his passive aggressive way, he doesn’t really like him anymore. Ifans is quiet throughout the movie, and puts up with a lot of Greenberg’s crap because he is too scared to put up with him. Leigh is brilliant in her few scenes, where it becomes clear that her relationship with Greenberg meant almost nothing to her, while he has built it up to mythic proportions. Gerwig, moving up in the world after making quite an impression in some of the key “mumblecore” films (a movement that I am not a big fan of by the way), is an utter delight as Florence – who tries to keep a happy face on, and see the best in everyone, including Greenberg. But the film really does belong to Stiller. Like many comedic actors, like there is a terrific dramatic actor under the surface that Stiller rarely explores – but when he does, the result is some of their most interesting work. Greenberg is still a comedy – at times an incredibly funny one – but Stiller is asked to dig deeper into Greenberg than he has been asked in years (perhaps since The Royal Tenenbaums nearly a decade ago). The result is perhaps the best performance of Stiller’s career – and makes Greenberg a highlight of the year so far.