Greenberg
As the title character in Greenberg, a guy pausing at midlife to lick his wounds, heal some old rifts and maybe open a few new ones, Ben Stiller manages quite a nice performance. Rather than the silly, caricatured buttheads on which Stiller has made his fortune, in Greenberg, he plays a true butthead, a man with deep emotional scars, a backpack full of guilt and a bushel of regrets. Stiller is paired to great effect with Greta Gerwig in a breakout role as an aspiring musician with her own self-esteem issues, a woman who kind of falls for Greenberg despite his off-putting demeanor. The film marks a rebound for director Noah Baumbach, who made the heartbreaking divorce portrait The Squid and the Whale, then stumbled with the stagy, phony sibling drama Margot at the Wedding.
City Island
Vince (Andy Garcia) is a prison security guard married to a secretary, Joyce (Julianna Margulies). Both are showing some wear from 20 years of marriage. Their daughter, Vivian (Dominik Garcia-Lorido, Garcia's real-life daughter), is home from college on spring break, but has -- unbeknownst to her parents -- lost her scholarship and taken up stripping to make money. Their son, Vinnie Jr. (Ezra Miller), is a high school teenager in the midst of discovering his sexuality. New York writer-director Raymond De Felitta (The Thing About My Folks) has made the messy, comic interiors of family life a continual theme. In City Island, he succeeds most in gathering a very entertaining ensemble and eliciting funny melodrama. At the Angelika in Dallas.
