Noah Baumbach, writer and director of The Squid and the Whale, features Ben Stiller as a kind of middle-aged-crazy Jesse Eisenberg (nose up, shoulders forward), a self-absorbed self-conscious ineffectual intellectual, who, upon his release from a mental hospital, wants to concentrate on “really trying to do nothing for a while,” aside from house-sitting for his brother in Los Angeles, maybe building a doghouse for Mahler the family pet, firing off letters of complaint to impervious corporations, and, not least, drinking like a fish. The fecklessness infects the entire film, which is sort of like a Woody Allen without the polished one-liners. Greta Gerwig, a diva of the “mumblecore” movement, as the brother’s personal assistant who is always on call to assist, has an odd, ditzy, dishraggy appeal. With Rhys Ifans and Jennifer Jason Leigh (Baumbach’s wife, who co-wrote the story with him). (2010) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.