Some veteran filmmakers try to capture the younger generation and fail to get it right, coming up with characters and faux with-it dialogue that invite lots of "Oh, Mom!" eye-rolling. That's not the problem with writer/director Nancy Meyers' The Intern, in which retiree Robert De Niro finds meaning in life — and brings lots of twinkly-gruff inspiration to others — by taking an internship at a Brooklyn-based online clothing company run by ambitious yet dippy businesswoman Anne Hathaway.
It's easy enough to live with Meyers' characterization of young professional Brooklynites — the men in baggy T's topped with plaid shirts that substitute for superhero capes, the women in short, peppy skirts and flats — all camped out in a massive Red Hook office space
Wanting more out of life than this highly fictional,
The Intern has its finger on the pulse of young and old today. The heartbeat is the thing it fails to detect.
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Ben quickly makes himself indispensable, doling out sensible advice,
There's a lot going on in The Intern, but all you have to know, really, is that Ben is rock-solid and Jules is a winsome puddle of insecurity and awesomeness. It's astonishing to realize that De Niro is just as capable as any other actor of slouching through a film like a lump of mold making its way down a tree limb. It's as if he's trying to keep all traces of actual personality or verve under wraps.
De Niro's lifelessness may not really be his fault. Meyers has built a career out of making Zeitgeist-straddling movies (Something's Gotta Give, What Women Want) that, like Winston Churchill with his martini, merely bow in the direction of France instead of adding actual vermouth: She serves up the promised main ingredient, but the subtler, more probing notes are always missing. The Intern makes a show of digging into of-the-moment issues: the idea of women in positions of power being resented by their partners, their friends, everybody; the need for "older" people — who, today, are younger than ever — to feel needed and wanted in society. But the spongy subtext of this and every Meyers movie is "We're being serious, but we're also being FUN!" No viewer must ever be made to think too much, feel too much, or be left out. She doesn't so much tell a story as lead a team-building exercise.
Hathaway, unfortunately, fits right into the plan. One minute Jules is the upbeat, fireball company owner: She can bring home the bacon, fry it up in the pan! But apparently, in the context of her achievements, her husband sometimes forgets he's a man — or her man, that is. (Meyers, to her credit, doesn't blame Jules for his waywardness, but hubby is so agreeably bland at home that it's almost a relief to learn he actually has a sex drive.)
When the truth hits Jules, the Fantine tears start spilling. Hathaway can be a lovely screen presence, but more directors need to rein in the too-muchness of her. She has the long-legged gait and the glinty saucer eyes of a cartoon deer — but with all those nerve endings so close to the surface, she needs to be soothed into laughing things off, not startling at every noise in the forest. At one point, Ben, having become Jules' de facto personal driver, drops her at her gorgeous yet aggressively humble Park Slope brownstone, long after dark, where her husband and cheerful moppet of a daughter await. "I love this house," she says. "It just looks happy to me."
It's happy, all right — for the record, probably about $3.8 million worth of happy. But still, Jules has her problems, just like you and me, and
The Intern
Starring Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Adam DeVine, Nat Wolff, Peter Vack, Anders Holm, and Rene Russo. Written and directed by Nancy Meyers. 121 minutes. Rated PG-13. Opens Friday, September 25.