Wednesday, July 14, 2010

Greenberg

I first saw the trailer for this, and was intrigued. Then I realized that it was the same director who did The Squid and the Whale, and I was sold. I'm a huge fan of the aforementioned movie: great performances, screenplay, directing, story, atmosphere: everything. While Greenberg does not live up to the quality of the Squid it was a fascinating study of a conflicted (and flawed?) character. Also, SPOILER ALERT, because I have to. Just skip the rest of this if you haven't seen the film.

One of the things I always look for in a movie like this, is character change, whether it's for the better or worse. In fact, I think that's one of the things I learned back in grade school regarding good story-telling: your protagonist should improve upon themselves in some way. But, I'm not expert. However, I did see this mechanism at work on Greenberg himself. Early in the film, Greenberg meets Florence and immediately attempts to woo her with (from his perspective) his good taste in music. And this sets the tone as this guy is just a robot right now; you know he does this with every woman he finds attractive. They do not seem to hit it off, but a few scenes later he calls her up, ends up going to her place and he goes down on her. While this is happening her shirt is removed and everything is on display, but Greenberg does not appreciate it. In fact, it's just autonomous like the robot he is, and completely in line with his self-serving behaviour he exhibits throughout the rest of the film.

Later on though, as they "take it slow" and they call the situation into question, it becomes clear that Greenberg has more of an interest in Florence, but even to him, he is unsure what it is. Then the moment: she leans over revealing quite a bit of cleavage, and he finds himself staring down her shirt. The camera focuses on her chest, then goes back to Greenberg. It's quite subtle, but it's there: he's seen "the good" before but is now just seeing her for the first time, and seeing in himself that he has fallen in love.

So there it is. The film also touches on a few other issues and in general, was a satisfying watch.

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