You don’t have to go very far back in the corporate world to a time when men knew their dress shirt size, and pantyhose for women was mandated in the employee dress code.
Since then, “casual Friday” has somehow morphed into casual everyday (killing many an upscale menswear business along the way), while mimeographs and rolodexes have been consigned to the past.
In The Intern, 71-year-old Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is a throwback to that world. Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) was thinking college senior, maybe even high school senior, when she agreed to a senior internship program at her successful fashion start-up company. It comes as a shock to learn that her new intern Ben is collecting social security.
Ben is a real relic: a former phone book company executive, his business is completely obsolete. But after traveling, taking classes and far too much tai chi, the widower knows he has more to offer. “Musicians don’t retire,” he says, “they stop when there’s no more music in them.”
For her part, Jules could use some sage advice. Her online fashion site About the Fit expanded at such a rapid rate she has scarcely stopped for breath since it launched; her husband Matt, a stay-at-home dad (Anders Holm), is feeling neglected. To quote another Nancy Meyers film, something’s gotta give.
Predictable fish-out-of-water moments ensue as Ben tries to figure out Facebook and how not to get fired from a gig where he doesn’t even get paid. In addition to advising Jules, Ben becomes the mentor for a whole office full of adult males who are more boys than men. (Including scene-stealer Adam Devine, Pitch Perfect 2). The boys gradually up their game, wardrobe-wise, and learn to communicate with words rather than emoticons. Meanwhile Ben’s head is turned for the first time in a long time by Fiona (Rene Russo), the company’s in-house masseuse.
Locations were Manhattan, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Because it’s a Meyers film, The Intern has generated almost as much advance buzz about its interiors as anything else, with spreads in Traditional Home and pins aplenty on Pinterest. Credit the collaboration between Meyers and production designer Kristi Zea. (Of note: some of the artwork in Ben’s flat is done by Robert De Niro Sr., the late figurative painter.)
Despite some far-fetched scripting and sporadically woeful dialogue The Intern nurtures a too-rare thing: a believable onscreen male-female friendship. Hathaway and De Niro, Oscar winners both, share a genuine chemistry that breaks through some of the more sophomoric moments in the early part of the film and remind us that not all relationships are of the til-death-us-do-part variety. If you can hang on for it, the final act packs an emotional punch.
And the film does tackle some of the big issues with ease, issues such as women in workplace power positions and retirement fears. For men of a certain age like Ben, baby boomers, career came first. Held up against the work-life balance struggle for women more than a generation younger, millennials like Jules, we can only conclude that senior intern and junior mentor are not so different after all.Â
The Intern opens Friday at Scotiabank.
