Screen Shots: The Room

@ The Music Box Theatre, Chicago. 2/12/10

NJAFBIT: Greenberg

WHY I'M INTERESTED:
Baumbach's latest features Ben Stiller as a stalled, semi-matured bachelor, newly arrived in Los Angeles from New York, sleepwalking a fine line between clueless lost soul and listless old soul. Stiller is certainly capable of good acting, especially in this type of role (see: Flirting with Disaster) and, as a trailer, it's a wonderfully evocative grouping of scenes.

Baumbach has had no trouble keeping himself in my good graces, through both his scripts with/for Wes Anderson (Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Life Aquatic) and his writer-director gigs (Margot at the Wedding, Squid and the Whale.) Greta Gerwig, who I like perhaps a little too much considering how well she slips time and time again into the now-fabled "manic pixie dream girl" role (albeit each time with a hint of not-so-pureness,) plays Stiller's love/like interest. And Mark Duplass, on the heels of success in Humpday and Baghead, also makes an appearance, perhaps signaling the final death knell and assimilation of 'mumblecore' (whatever the hell it was, anyway) into the Hollywood machine.

Baumbach, having already tread the post-collegiate transitional blues in Kicking and Screaming, appears to be filing another report from the frontlines, this time from post-career, non-committal flailing middle-aged-dom. He's about as qualified as anybody. Throw in Rhys Ifans, and Jennifer Jason Leigh in horn-rimmed glasses (she is also co-writer,) and a tantalizing soundtrack by LCD Soundsystem genuis James Murphy, and I'm sold.

PREDICTION:
Two parts mumble-something, one part jittery NYC entitlement, one part Sundance-y sparkle.

RELEASE DATE:
3/26/2010