Greenberg

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The wonder of the film is how good it makes us feel. Greenberg scintillates with intelligence, razor's-edge humor and austere empathy for its struggling lovers.

Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips

Extraordinary.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

Bittersweet and beautifully realized, harsh but humane, Greenberg is a self-consciously small film that nevertheless leaves an indelible mark.

The New York Times A.O. Scott

It is the funniest and saddest movie Mr. Baumbach has made so far, and also the riskiest.

NPR Ella Taylor

Greenberg is on every level the work of a more mature filmmaker, and quite possibly a happier man.

Philadelphia Inquirer Steven Rea

Greenberg, with Stiller's sad and self-mocking portrait at its core, is well worth getting to know.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

I have a weakness for actresses like Greta Gerwig. She looks reasonable and approachable.

USA Today Claudia Puig

Powerfully honest, insightful and poignant.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

Baumbach's movies are addictive dispatches from a genteel jungle of white privilege, where highly educated people behave badly. I can't take my eyes off the exotic wildlife.

The New Yorker David Denby

This is tricky, ambiguous material, seemingly better fitted to a short literary novel than to a movie, and it could have gone wrong in a hundred ways, yet Baumbach handles it with great assurance.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Greenberg is a movie of throwaway one-liners and evocatively nondescript locations. The style is observational, the drama is understated, and, when the time comes, it knocks you out with the subtlest of badda-booms.

Time Out New York Joshua Rothkopf

When Stiller indulges in moments of unfulfilled rage, this has real desperation.

Empire Andrew Male

Like a lot of human relationships Greenberg is complicated, infuriating, good-hearted, funny, often painful, and well worth the effort. A sad little movie but also a great one, lit by two astonishing central performances.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

Going dramatic, Stiller commits to the role completely; there's something rather admirable in his refusal to pander or soft-pedal the self-serious, frankly unlikable Greenberg.

St. Louis Post-Dispatch Joe Williams

Like "The Squid and the Whale," this character study pushes the definition of comedy to the breaking point, and unlike the far less successful "Margot at the Wedding," it leaves us faintly smiling after the workout.

Orlando Sentinel Roger Moore

Baumbach overreaches, making this character a selfish, off-putting cultural (LA) and generational scold. But Stiller, in his most “real” performance in ages, finds the function in this catalog of dysfunctions, the humanity in this humanity-hating crank.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

Noah Baumbach makes nature documentaries disguised as indie comedy-dramas.

Washington Post Ann Hornaday

A delicate, if slightly smoggy, feeling of regret hangs over Greenberg, a quietly funny portrait of grown-ups growing up.

Portland Oregonian Shawn Levy

Why would you watch a film about a creep like Greenberg? Well, aside from the fact that it’s well-done and intense and occasionally funny (in a dark, dark way, mind you), there’s the sneaking suspicion that there’s a little of this fellow in all of us, and self-knowledge of that sort is a gift that, often, only art can give.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

Jennifer Jason Leigh (Baumbach's wife) appears in two scenes, as an ex-girlfriend of Greenberg, and she's quietly brilliant, as always.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

What saves it, however, is Gerwig. The love story ain’t credible, but her performance is, perfectly capturing a young woman who doesn’t lack confidence so much as a sense of self.

Christian Science Monitor Andy Klein

Even if you sympathize with his troubles, it’s hard to actually like the guy. At best, he’s uncomfortable to be around; at worst, he’s irritating and even reprehensible.

New York Observer Sara Vilkomerson

Mr. Baumbach has a knack for capturing real-life dialogue--particularly and hilariously how people tend not to listen to the person on the other side of the conversation.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

See this darkly comic character study unburdened by preconceptions.

Miami Herald Rene Rodriguez

Greenberg is a comedy (a scene in which Roger attends a boisterous college party and pitches a fit over the music is marvelously funny), but it's a sad, rueful comedy about disappointment.

Time Mary Pols

That Greenberg has merits is undeniable. Gerwig, a funny mix of Kate Winslet and the joyfully ditzy young Diane Keaton, should end up a star. Stiller dials back his own schtick and deserves to be taken seriously.

New York Magazine David Edelstein

Greenberg would be a heckuva movie if we could just get Greenberg out of there.

New York Daily News Joe Neumaier

The movie may wear its shagginess on its sleeve, but Stiller knows exactly what he’s doing.

The Hollywood Reporter Kirk Honeycutt

While winning no points for originality, Baumbach and his co-conspirator in the script, Jennifer Jason Leigh -- have created an all-too-convincing portrait of a 40-year-old man in emotional freefall.

Variety Todd McCarthy

As a study of stasis and of people conscious of not living the lives they had imagined for themselves, the picture offers a bracing undertow of seriousness beneath the deceptively casual, dramatically offhand surface.

Arizona Republic Bill Goodykoontz

There's no hard-and-fast rule that says you have to like the main character in a movie. It's more a custom, really - a custom that Ben Stiller stretches nearly to the breaking point in Greenberg.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

An unsettling but ultimately joyous little picture, a movie that's as self-conscious as anything Baumbach has ever made, and yet far more open: It reaches out to the world instead of insisting on hugging its own pain, tight.

St. Petersburg Times Steve Persall

Nothing much happens in Greenberg, yet Stiller and co-star Greta Gerwig make inconsequence tolerable with solid performances.

New Orleans Times-Picayune Mike Scott

There's humor there, but this is a "smart" comedy, which is to say it's not intended to make you guffaw.

New York Post Kyle Smith

To really pull off Greenberg would require a lead performance from a master actor. The actor it stars is . . . Ben Stiller.

Boxoffice Magazine Richard Mowe

Although Ben Stiller’s brand of nervy comic ticks can prove irritating on occasions, here he is kept in check so that the humor and the pathos shine through.

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

Any comic relief it affords comes with such an undertow of repressed emotions and displaced anger that it all starts to feel more depressing than dramatic.

Slate Dana Stevens

Putting them together was a bold casting move, but as good as they both are in their roles--she (Gerwig) in the flustered, galumphing mode of early Teri Garr, he (Stiller) in the clenched and mumbling one of late Woody Allen--they never quite seem to be sharing the same movie.

Chicago Reader J.R. Jones

Stiller plays a monster, and when Gerwig goes for him, declaring that she sees his tender side, the development seems like a fond indulgence on the part of writer-director Noah Baumbach.