The Intern | Nancy Meyers | September 25, 2015
You might take one look at The Intern, Nancy Meyers’ latest film, and think it’s a mix of The Internship and The Devil Wears Prada … and you might not be too far off.
Senior citizens don’t always get the best treatment when it comes to movies, from the recent The Visit to something like Last Vegas. However, The Intern treats the age bracket with a little more respect – if just two of the several older faces in the movie.
Ben (Robert De Niro) is a 70-year-old widower who comes upon a flyer for a senior internship program while shopping at a Brooklyn supermarket, so he gets with the times and submits a video cover letter/résumé … because he’s got nothing better to do than read the newspaper in Starbucks like clockwork, do group tai chi in the park, travel the world with his Frequent Flyer miles, and cook for himself since he retired and his wife died several years prior. Jules (Anne Hathaway), meanwhile, is the workaholic CEO of the 18-month-old start-up fashion shopping site About The Fit, which skyrocketed from a few friends in her kitchen to over 200 employees in the two Brooklyn warehouses (one for office work and the other for packing and shipping). She does everything from take customer complaints to slowly bicycle around the Brooklyn warehouse of an office to stop at the packaging warehouse to regularly working late; all of this leaves little time for her stay-at-home former marketing big-shot husband Matt (Anders Holm) and elementary school-aged daughter Paige (Jojo Kushner).
And the senior internship program is what brings them together, as Ben puts his years of business experience to use helping around the office and acting as a friend and mentor to Jules when she’s being pushed to find a CEO with more experience to take the reins.
I haven’t seen a Nancy Meyers film since Something’s Gotta Give, but The Intern was refreshing – if just for the business acumen. The cast (which includes the likes of Andrew Rannells, Rene Russo, Nat Wolff (briefly), Christina Scherer, and the semi-comedic trio of Adam DeVine (surprisingly a little less douche-y), Zack Pearlman, and Jason Orley) was good, along with the directing and cinematography. However, the humor at times verged on being awkward or patronizing, the world felt too movie-perfect despite the Meyers trademark designed sets, and one scene was way too unethical for my liking – especially considering Ben’s respectable business background and the nature of the film. There are no life-or-death decisions and no serious consequences for any of the characters, who feel a little more like actual people.
On the surface, The Intern is a light mismatched buddy film of sorts that relies on familiar tropes to tell the story, but it’s also a deeper look into the fashion start-up world with implicit advice for anyone in need of networking or job help. Then again, it’s not the real world or the world of The Devil Wears Prada (as Ms. Hathaway should well know).
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