Greenberg

Directed by Noah Baumbach

(R)

***

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Greenberg is director Noah Baumbach’s “most self-lacerating picture yet,” said Lisa Schwarzbaum in Entertainment Weekly. The auteur’s latest “acutely attentive, intentionally painful” character study stars Ben Stiller as Roger Greenberg, a 40-ish failed musician living in New York who travels to his brother’s hillside Los Angeles home to recover from a nervous breakdown. There, he meets Florence Marr (Greta Gerwig), a sweet, scattered 25-year-old who works as his brother’s personal assistant. Both damaged souls adrift in life, Roger and Florence are a study in contrasts, said A.O. Scott in The New York Times. While Florence radiates openness and heartbreaking vulnerability, Roger is a bitter loner who hides from life and refuses to confront his past. Greenberg isn’t a likable character, but Baumbach treats him with compassion. Rather than lead this character down a path of redemption, the film suggests that some people will always be a pile of neuroses, said Nathan Rabin in the A.V. Club. As an exploration of loneliness and a study of people coming to terms with life, Greenberg “leaves an indelible mark.”