New York director Noah Baumbach, the child of writers, writes consistently smart screenplays about that urban intellectual milieu, from his debut "Kicking and Screaming" to his Oscar-nominated "The Squid and the Whale," arguably his most fully realized film to date, which broke out Jesse Eisenberg, followed by less well-received "Margot at the Wedding," which was a dark, dead-on accurate portrait of a family of narcissists. Baumbach is willing to show characters who are lost and flailing.