The Intern
Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro: The Bag Man) isn’t adjusting to retirement. Widowed and 3,000 miles from his son and granddaughter, Ben feels imprisoned in his Brooklyn townhouse. Life is reduced to funerals, busywork and widows who want to pre-heat his lasagna.
A flyer advertising senior internships at an Internet startup leads him back into the workforce, but his new career takes some adjustment. He’s a suit in a sea of hoodies. He uses a clock instead of consulting his cellphone. He listens when people talk. He’s doesn’t know how to turn on his computer.
Ben’s ineptitude rankles company founder Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway: Interstellar), who thought senior internships a dumb idea. Overcommitted and flighty, she is Ben’s polar opposite. She’s trying to have it all but seems to be losing everything one piece at a time. Investors want an experienced CEO in her place to manage the company’s massive growth. With her job and family threatened, Jules turns to wise old Ben when he proves a cool head in a crisis.
Can Ben learn how to survive in a modern office? Will Jules figure out how to have it all? Why do only the men get to dress in hoodies and jeans?
The Intern is a confection: Sweet, enjoyable and bad for you in large quantities. Director Nancy Meyers’ (It’s Complicated) newest is better at cultivating lifestyle envy than developing characters. Brooklyn brownstones are done in open layouts, airy colors out of Pottery Barn catalogs and enviable kitchens. Outfits are impeccable or comically bad.
Meyers has never been particularly interested in her characters. Jules is a textbook neurotic. It’s supposed to be adorable that Jules and Ben bond, but it’s notable that she becomes sweet or caring only with someone who makes his living stroking her ego. Hathaway does her perky best to make Jules’ manic energy likeable, but the character is underwritten.
Ben is a role De Niro could perform in his sleep. His old-school advice that transforms the office isn’t so much generational knowledge as common sense.
Meyers’ reflections on feminism are equally light. Meyers falls back on clichés to show how hard it is to be a working mother.
The Intern isn’t a terrible film. The locales are pretty, the humor light and the characters funny. Nothing of consequence happens, nor does anything offensive. If you’re overdue for an outing with your mother or grandmother, make a date for The Intern.