Slated for release in March 2010, is the somber looking comedy Greenberg written and directed by Noah Baumbach and starring Ben Stiller. Stiller is a versatile comedian with great taste and I fully expect him to be great in this (Although personally I don’t think he can ever top his early performance as the nursing home orderly in Happy Gilmore) however, I personally feel that what makes this film so potentially interesting is Baumbach himself.

The writer/director of one of 2005’s best movies The Squid and the Whale, Baumbach is a serious talent; although I personally didn’t love his 2007 film Margot at the Wedding, The Squid and the Whale is an utter masterpiece, Jeff Daniels absolutely kills it as the slowly fading novelist, resentful of his wife, and Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline (son of Kevin) all bring an engaging reality to the film that is remarkably compelling; best of all though, is Baumbach’s moving and tragically funny Oscar nominated script. I’d have to say I (almost) have more respect for Baumbach as a writer, than as a director, he has written the screenplays for all his own films (to critical acclaim, The Squid and The Whale was widely considered the screenplay of the year in 2005) and he has also twice collaborated on scripts with Wes Anderson (my favorite director, who served as a producer on The Squid and The Whale), first on Anderson’s deadpan, often underappreciated, 2004 comedy, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, and most recently on the Screenplay for Anderson’s upcoming adaptation of Roald Dahl’s The Fantastic Mr Fox.

Greenberg is currently in post-production, but with any luck, come March, the film should add up to even more than the sum of it parts; after all, who among you can honestly say that you can not, on some level, identify with the age old ‘quest to do nothing.’