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Published: 10 June, 2010
by DAN CARRIER

BEN Stiller has managed to take himself a step above his comic contemporaries. 

At one point his career looked as if it might go the way of such per­forming monkeys as Jim Carrey, Adam Sandler and the like, churning out unfunny and tasteless tat. 

Then came Meet The Parents, which had the capacity for being exceptionally bad, but left me happily surprised, as did the follow-up, Meet The Fokkers. 

Here he goes semi-serious, playing the role of Roger Greenberg, a carpenter recovering from a nervous breakdown. We learn Rog moved from Los Angeles to New York years back, having dropped out of a rock ’n’ roll band on the verge of hitting the big time. 

Now he is back, aged 40, riddled with regrets. He is house-sitting for his successful brother who has taken his family on hols to Vietnam, and quickly falls for his brother’s personal assistant Florence (Greta Gerwig). The film focuses on their muddled attempts to find some common ground on which to dance, and make sense of the world they inhabit.

There are some great lines, and strong performances, but you can’t escape the feeling that spending anything more than time in a supermarket queue with this pair would drive you insane.

Leading lady Gerwig turns a good kooky trick, but while we are supposed to find this loveable, at times she is just hideously wet and wimpy, and appears to be nothing more than a sad, irritating loser. This seeps through many of the characters: Roger is a bore, self-centred and, at times, simply nasty. His brother is on screen for just a few moments, but the impression you get is again of a rather horrible individual: Florence is sent scurrying to collect dry cleaning, feed the pet, and is a general dogsbody. This servile relationship is not dressed up in any way, but you can’t help drawing conclusions that the type of person who bosses someone about as they pick up their underwear frankly needs a kick in the pants. 

However, despite Roger and Florence’s best attempts at making you want to lob something heavy at the screen, the slow-burning relationship begins to wheedle its way into your mind and you have to think, “Hey, they are not so bad after all.” Sins are forgiven, and you eventually feel sorry for this witless pair – all testimony to the skill of the actors.

Director Noah Baumbach’s 2005 film The Squid and The Whale was pretty well observed and fun – he attempts the same trick here with limited success. 

It sits firmly in a camp of film-making that has risen in popularity through the past 10 years. It is dubbed “mumble­core”, and focuses on American 20 to 30-somethings improvising films and generally doing low-rate mimicry of Mike Leigh movies. 

While they are attractive, giving a sense of what lies beneath the usual Hollywood gloss, they can be hugely irritating. 

These flicks often make me think that there is a generation (my generation) that has simply failed to grow up. 

Your sympathy for  this bunch rapidly diminishes when you  put their troubles into context. As Rhys Ifans’ character quotes: youth is wasted on the young, to which Stiller replies “and life is wasted on people.” That sums up the nihilistic sense of mumblecore, and is such a disagreeable attitude. 

Pull your socks up, young man, and get on with it. At least you are fed, watered and have a roof over your head, you sad, uncultured, softie.