One of the most touching lines in Noah Baumbach's remarkable "Greenberg" is an announcement by the wistful young heroine, Florence Marr: "I've gotta stop doing things just because they feel good." Good? There's no evidence that Florence—a portrait of heartbreaking delicacy by Greta Gerwig—feels truly good about anything. She feels bad about herself, and properly anxious about an emerging love affair with Roger Greenberg, a middle-aging misanthrope played with intransigent brilliance by Ben Stiller. Everything's relative, of course. Florence is joyous compared to Roger, a former musician whose anger at the world is matched only by his narcissism. Yet the wonder of the film is how good it makes us feel. "Greenberg" scintillates with intelligence, razor's-edge humor and austere empathy for its struggling lovers. This is a new departure for Mr. Baumbach, even though he might seem to be working the same territory of neurotic dysfunction and mutual need that he explored, sometimes relentlessly, in "The Squid and the Whale" and "Margot at the Wedding.[Read more...]