Baumbach brings out the worst in his actors
Why don’t you sit on my d-ck,” is all Roger Greenberg has to say to his best friend Ivan after several waiters surround their table and present Greenberg with a piece of cake and sing happy birthday to him in writer-director Noah Baumbach’s most recent film, Greenberg.
The character Greenberg (Ben Stiller) is just the latest of Baumbach’s creations to share the same social tendencies of being nothing but rude, self-indulgent and utterly mean.
For the last five years, the director has created characters that in no way care to disguise or withhold their brutal feelings from one another or even from the audience watching everything unfold.
Baumbach gained his first commercial success with 2005’s The Squid and the Whale, which was nominated for the Academy Award for best original screenplay. It tells the story of Bernard and Joan Berkman, married literary snobs played by Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, whose divorce and subsequent attempts at joint custody of their two children demonstrate an unsympathetic malevolence that is eventually adopted by their offspring.
At first, the film leads its audience to believe their abrasiveness is simply directed toward each other, as their marriage is depicted right from the first scene as merely a competition — especially since both are writers. But as the film progresses, their turmoil is revealed to stem from somewhere much deeper, and the two are shown to be just mean, simply put.
Their common self-centeredness, which is infused with subtle and endearingly dry humor, comes off as comical, but the comedic reactions to their intense gestures and outspokenness are derived simply because there is nothing else to do but laugh at them. To deal with such hostilities without some form of laughter would be impossible.
And that is Baumbach’s true gift. He is able to capture the lives of harsh people by dressing up all of their apprehensions with wit and even charm. This is exemplified most effectively as Bernard tells his eldest son that he should not be attached to his girlfriend but “play the field.”
Baumbach’s next film, 2007’s Margot at the Wedding, showcases another neurotic individual, similar to the battling parents in The Squid and the Whale. Margot, played by Nicole Kidman — in one of her best yet underrated performances — decides to visit her estranged sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh), as Pauline is about to get married. However, the only reason Margot shows up for the wedding is so that she can belittle and antagonize her sister out of marrying someone she finds unworthy.
Like Baumbach’s earlier work, Margot at the Wedding features a character who is blatantly aggressive, and what makes her so vile is her inclination to do nothing but reprimand her sister. Margot, like Bernard and Joan, is naturally offensive and unable to convey any emotion besides cruelty. Baumbach’s latest character creation, Greenberg, exhibits this very same mentality.
In all of Baumbach’s films, each of the director’s nasty characters is portrayed with elaborate sophistication by whoever takes on the role. Greenberg is no exception: Stiller has not been this good since 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums — directed by Baumbach’s buddy Wes Anderson — and it is refreshing to witness Stiller take on a more challenging role than his usual comic performances.
There is comedy here, but the film’s tendency to be just as abrasive as its characters calls for more complexity from an actor than Meet the Fockers, for example. Stiller is able to capitalize and project a truly troubled individual with ease.
Greenberg and its predecessors acknowledge a very different direction in American cinema, one that presents characters that are difficult to connect with. Baumbach himself addressed this, saying, “honestly, I really believe the characters in my movies are only unlikable, only could be seen as unlikable, in comparison to most mainstream movie characters.”
And while they are unlikable, they are still utterly fascinating because they present the extremes of human characteristics, especially those which most would choose to conceal, like harshness or a bitter outlook toward others. While such character traits might prove to be unsympathetic for many moviegoers, the human ability to be so cruel does indeed exist, and it must be addressed. Baumbach is able to masterfully explore how this other half lives.
It is Baumbach’s ability to represent cruelty with humor as well as sadness that makes his demeaning characters and all of their idiosyncrasies so appealing — their shortcomings truly do make them unique. There are very few directors that make their characters both heroes and villains, and it is through this process that Baumbach’s characters greatly exemplify all sides of humanity.
Christopher Byars is a senior majoring in English (creative writing). His column, “Cinerama,” runs Fridays.