|
This movie stars Ben Stiller as Greenberg, a 40 year old lost soul, taking a break from things including his work as a carpenter out in L.A. after a bout with depression. This depression is linked to an outer world where he is seemingly short of successes of others such as his vacationing brother who has all the trappings of success and brings a tone of superiority to him in long distance phone calls. His brother has a personal assistant who is a 26 year old attractive girl who is even more of a lost soul than Greenberg and she seems to have no anchoring at all. While Greenberg has a degree of self realization about things gone wrong, she doesn’t even have that. While she might be earlier in the cycle of things gone wrong, this cycle has brought her to a further realm of lost than even Greenberg is experiencing. This is exactly the type of person he should avoid if he wants to lift himself out of the doldrums but instead along the lines of the themes of the movie he paints himself in the corner again by gravitating to her even though he knows that this isn’t good and he is resisting the pull, but it isn’t working well enough as he is reaching out to anything even if it involves false comforts as his breath of fresh air and a chance for a fresh start will certainly not be found with her. How things went array for him is only speculative, but there is the idea out there of blaming a 15 year ago ditch of getting together a possibly great band which could have been his and some of his friends ticket to a much different life and how that one fateful decision to disembark from the band played out through all the ensuing years. A meeting with an old friend shows that there was uncertainly as to what his romantic chances back then really were and did he even overate the possibilities that had been at hand way back then? We can see that within his descent he became increasingly self absorbed and this only added to his troubles and this has gotten to the point where he is mad at the world. He is now involved with distortions. He gets super mad at small things when people are laughing too loud at the restaurant, yet placates to the crowd at a frat like party and does a line of coke for the first time in more than a decade. There is a party of 20 year olds at the pad and even they are as misguided as could be, with more arrogance about it then he would ever have. For the most part the second wave behind him doesn’t have a clue or compass either. There is one opening for a new world. Not quite everyone sees him as he sees himself, as already washed up and his better chances already gone. Will he find and take the new road, or just turn around and go with the familiar, the tried and true failures.
Related Articles -
movies, Ben Stiller, decisions,
| 
