70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn't
all it's cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the
game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and
run by Jules Ostin.
70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn't
all it's cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the
game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and
run by Jules Ostin.
The Intern Movies Reviews
As
far as on screen pairings go, 'The Intern' boasts probably one of the
most interesting ones in recent memory. On one hand is Robert De Niro's
70-year-old Ben Whittaker, presently struggling to deal with the concept
of retirement; on the other is Anne Hathaway's 32-year-old Jules Ostin,
the founder and CEO of a tremendously successful fashion-based
e-commerce company called 'About the Fit' or 'ATF' for short' who is
presently struggling to deal with the demands of her investors while not
neglecting her six-year-old daughter and stay- home husband.
Diametrically opposite as they may be, writer/ director Nancy Meyers
wants to prove that these two individuals can have much more to learn
from each other than you and I can imagine.
So through a
community outreach programme which one of her company's executives
hatched, Ben finds his away into ATF as a senior intern after impressing
some of the much younger employees with his warm sense of humour, his
cheery can-do demeanour and proving least likely among his competition
to drop dead while on the job (yes, we mean this literally). Despite
Jules' initial chagrin, that same executive assigns Ben directly to
Jules in order to set an example for the rest of the employees in the
company. And as the trailers would have you know, Ben will slowly but
surely overcome her reservations with a keen sensitive eye and an
unerring professionalism, eventually becoming not just a calming ear
amidst the day to day chaos at the workplace but also an invaluable
source of advice for her professional and personal woes.
Just so
you know, De Niro and Hathaway do not eventually fall in love with each
other, so you can rest easy if you're wondering or worried if things
would eventually get weird or awkward between them; and to put that at
rest, Meyers finds De Niro a romantic interest in Rene Russo's in-house
massage therapist Fiona and occupies Hathaway with the discovery that
her husband (Anders Holm) has been cheating on her with the stay-home
mother of her daughter's schoolmate. It is also in the latter where De
Niro will come most prominently to play counsellor and confidante,
nudging her not to blame her workaholic tendencies for her husband's
infidelity. Oh yes, there is a message of empowerment and encouragement
for all career mothers within – and a slap on the face if you will have
it for their other halves who use that as an excuse to commit adultery.
In
keeping with her recent movies, Meyers has eschewed male- dominated
Hollywood stereotype by fashioning Jules as a strong, opinionated and
successful female individual who can be a hands-on CEO to over 220
employees at her company while being a dedicated mother and loving wife.
Her response to her husband's infidelity isn't to fall in love with a
fellow co-worker or to divorce him immediately; rather, she wants to
give him a second chance, believing that a re-affirmation of their
mutual love for each other will convince him to end his affair once and
for all. You may disagree – as Ben does – with whether she is being
naïve, but hey it's undeniably still a strong gutsy move for a woman to
put aside her pride and her hurt to offer forgiveness and to choose to
stay together.
Meyers also has yet another intention here, and
that is to quash ageism at the workplace. It isn't just coincidence that
the company Ben joins is in the Internet business; as incongruous as
his presence may be in an industry that arguably does not appeal to his
age demographic, Meyers wants to let the young upstart CEOs of today's
tech companies know that – as the tagline goes – experience never gets
old and that there is something that the Gen-Y leaders can learn from
their Gen-X counterparts. You can almost hear Meyers' own lament through
Jules that the men of today are a far cry from the likes of Jack
Nicholson and Harrison Ford, and that just as Jules does, we will find
something to learn from the silver-haired members of our workforce.
Both
are equally poignant lessons, but perhaps not so wieldy in the same
movie. Meyers tries to convey the latter first, and does so quite
persuasively through a mixture of situational comedy and punchlines that
are gently amusing but never by way of caricature – indeed, the closest
she comes to farce is an 'Oceans' Eleven' like 'heist' led by Ben to
break into Jules' mother's house and delete an email that Jules had
accidentally sent to her mother. The first hour of the movie cruises by
like a breeze, in large part as well thanks to De Niro's spot-on comic
timing that he hasn't lost since the last sequel of 'Meet the Parents'.
There is also much delight to be had watching De Niro and Hathaway break
the ice between their respective characters, their dynamic sincere,
heartfelt and genuinely affable.
Unfortunately, Meyers doesn't
quite do the former as well, and the latter half of the movie sags as a
result of a more melodramatic change in tone and pace. Not to trivialise
women in similar predicaments, but it isn't quite so convincing just
why Jules' husband would cheat on her in the first place and a tad too
convenient how Ben comes to chance upon the fact which ends up putting
him in a moral quandary.
And though Meyers' screenplay could do
with some work, it is the sheer effervescent chemistry between De Niro
and Hathaway that keeps the movie afloat. Both are equally lovely in
their respective roles, and the strength of their performances is enough
to make you forgive the fact that their characters are probably too
good-natured to be true. Yes, 'The Intern' works best when it is a
two-hander between its unlikely on screen pairing, and fizzles out
especially in the last third once it decides to make three a crowd.
