If a mission to the multiplex can evoke warmth and comfort as much as spectacle and awe, then consider The Intern the latest cheerleader for the former outcome. Written, directed and produced by Nancy Meyers as her next undemanding, feel-good effort following Something’s Gotta Give, The Holiday and It’s Complicated, the film plays in her preferred realm of straddling the line between relatable and fanciful. Characters struggle with life and love in heightened circumstances, swanning around idealised locations, glowing in gently paced, pastel-hued imagery, and learning pearls of wisdom about modern existence as well as themselves.
Here, Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro, Grudge Match) initiates proceedings as a 70-year-old retiree and widower wanting to reclaim a sense of purpose, and willing to try something new to do so. Securing a senior-oriented internship at an online shopping start-up created and managed by the ever-busy Jules Osten (Anne Hathaway, Interstellar) offers the break from his routine he needs; however his presence also inspires the same in his new employer. Although Jules is initially reluctant about her new assistant, his experience helps calm her stresses as she struggles with work-life balance, tries to find time to spend with her stay-at-home husband (Anders Holm, TV’s Workaholics) and young daughter (debutanteJoJo Kushner), and contemplates appointing someone else as her company’s CEO.
The trials and tribulations Meyers’ narrative traverses swiftly favour Jules over Ben, along lines oft seen in women-focused movies: the perils and problems of daring to want to have it all. Of course, as the age-inappropriate offsider wows the younger folks he must call his superiors, the notion of the usefulness of the elderly remains in the generation-gap comedy, particularly when it comes to counselling someone in the midst of several crises. Indeed, in charting the slow, amiable bonding of the central pair, as well as the spilling of their connection out of boss-worker territory and into a pseudo father-daughter relationship, her issues become intertwined with his advice. For all its championing of its female protagonist, including obvious condemnation of negative views about working mothers, there’s a troubling statement in this dynamic that speaks to the film’s — and its filmmaker’s — penchant for steadfastly playing it safe.
In fact, that The Intern places its self-belief missive and corresponding dream of simultaneous career and family success in the hands of the older, wiser, male caretaker cannot be shaken, though the rapport between and performances of both De Niro and Hathaway work hard to give the scenario more shades of subtlety than the script affords. He might be worlds away from his decades-earlier best — as easily recalled when he talks to a mirror, Taxi Driver-style — and she might be asked to lean on the theatrics that earned her an Oscar for Les Misérables, but in demonstrating the requisite mix of earnest sentiment and slight comic timing, they make a convincing pair, even though they’re routinely constrained by the material.
When that material increasingly embraces the standard movie fantasy, even eschewing the romantic part of Meyer’s usual rom-coms as it does, that’s hardly surprising. A breezy touch and a bright look further place the movie firmly in conventional territory, with The Intern designed to offer a cosy diversion that toys with just enough reality to make it palatable. In other words: for the director and her brand of cinema, it’s another attempt at crowd-pleasing business as usual.
Rating: 2.5 stars out of 5
The Intern
Director: Nancy Meyers
USA, 2015, 121 mins
Release date: October 1
Distributor: Roadshow
Rated: M
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