Greenberg

If you've seen the previews, you know that Greenberg features Ben Stiller in midlife crisis mode, wandering around L.A. looking lost and offering sardonic observations (at a coke party, he informs the kids that they were too pampered, growing up listening to "Baby Mozart"). If you've seen Noah Baumbach's recent films - the excellent divorce memoir, er, fictional piece The Squid and the Whale or the repulsive Margot at the Wedding - you'll know that the film's bound to have more up its sleeve than the genial trailer indicates. Indeed, Stiller's character - Roger Greenberg - is more asocial and pained (and oddly enough, more grounded) than the ads suggest. What's more, he is introduced gradually, tangentially, with the movie initially focusing on Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig), as she runs errands and does household chores for the rich Hollywood family she works for. She'll be looking after their house and dog while the yupster clan cavorts in Vietnam; meanwhile Roger, the brother of Gerwig's employer, will be staying in the home and supposedly building a doghouse - ostensibly for the pet, but it might as well be for himself.

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