The Intern, Review: Good turn

A 30-something Internet start-up founder finds a soul-mate in a 70-something company ‘intern’. So, what does she do? Get involved with him romantically? Banish the thought. She is looking for a CEO to run the company more efficiently, and the old man has been a marketing manager. So, what does she do? Promote him to CEO? No way. She finds that her house-husband is cheating on her. So, all hell breaks loose? Not a chance. The Intern carefully avoids all obvious screen-writing traps and serves us a highly realistic, feel-good, at times mushy, comedy, even if the narrative unfolds to reveal a world that is utopian, rather than the greedy, cheating, exploitative, discriminatory and intolerant dark planet it is fast turning into.

Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), the founder and CEO of About the Fit (ATF), an e-commerce made-to-order clothing company, agrees to a community outreach program where seniors will intern at the firm. One of the new interns is Ben Whitaker (Robert de Niro), a widower and retired senior manager at a phone directory company. Ben is assigned to work with Jules, who is somewhat sceptical of him at first. However, Jules begins to warm to Ben when he finds that her chauffeur is an alcoholic, and offers to take over his position. Ben eventually reveals that his directory company was located in the very same building where ATF is now based. He also develops a romantic relationship with the in-house massage therapist, Fiona (Rene Russo), and becomes something of a father figure to the younger interns. On one occasion, he even leads a team to break into the house of Jules' mother, to delete an offensive email that Jules inadvertently sent her, instead of sending it to her husband.

On strong advice of her venture capital investors and her right hand, Jules seriously considers hiring a CEO from outside her company, in the hope of professionalising ATF, which has grown from a start-up founded in her kitchen, to a 250+ employee juggernaut in only 18 months. Believing it will give her more time at home with her husband Matt (Anders Holm) and daughter Paige (Jo Jo Kushner), she is willing to consider the offer. While driving Paige home from a children’s birthday party, Ben discovers that Matt is having an affair with the mother of one of Paige's playmates. It turns out that Jules knows about Matt's cheating as well.

Writer-director Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated, The Holiday, Father of the Bride, What Women Want, Baby Boom) has been inspired by a quote from Dr. Seuss, “Today you are You, that is truer than true. There is no one alive that is You-er than You.” Dr. Seuss (1904–1991), born Theodor Seuss Geisel, was an American author and illustrator. He published over 60 books. His children's books like 'The Cat in the Hat' and 'Green Eggs and Ham' were some of his most famous works.

In this film, every character is with great care and empathy, and everybody, from the young daughter to the septuagenarian protagonist and an over-bearing, sleep researcher mother, come across as slice-of-life. One-liners are used extensively, but not as witticisms or punny gags, rather as home-truths that usually say more than the words you hear, or express a sentiment not enacted on screen. Her ability to give the right attributes of dress, language and vocabulary, gait and mannerisms to boys and girls, men and women, work colleagues and family, is remarkable. Director Meyers has given altogether new meaning to blinking, no, I don’t mean winking. De Niro’s blinking scenes will most likely be discussed for some time to come as a great piece of serious comedy writing and execution.

For the greater part, the narrative flows smooth as silk. It is a tad unfortunate that she has to rely on some stretching-your-belief co-incidences, like the fact that Whittaker used to work in the same premises where ATF stands, him being the only person to notice that Jules’ chauffeur drinks on the job, him seeing Mark with his girl-friend who is wearing green, just when he is playing a guessing game with Paige about the colour green.

Tina Fey and Michael Caine were originally cast in the stellar roles, and then Reese Witherspoon came in for Tina, before Anne Hathaway had her way. Anne (The Devil Wears Prada, Brokeback Mountain, Interstellar) had auditioned for Nancy twice before, when she was making The Holiday and What Women Want. For The Intern, Meyers and Hathaway decided to model the role like a “Punk-rock Katherine Hepburn”. One would not say it is as hard-boiled as that, being more sentimental than sardonic, but we get the point. Whatever it is, it was worked very well. Anne Hathaway is up there.

Hey! Hold on! Isn’t Robert De Niro playing the male lead here? He is, and how! Meyers is right-on when she says, “I think he’s the best guy(part) I’ve ever written”. And she has the best man to translate it on to the screen. Underplaying and eminently dignified, with the barest trace of human weakness, all conveyed with consummate artistry, De Niro is still big in the game. Both he and Hathaway play their real-ages: De Niro was 71 when the film was shot and Hathaway 32, and that cannot harm either portrayal.

Rene Russo (Lethal Weapon, Get Shorty, Nightcrawler) has maintained an age-defying figure, though her looks have aged. As the divorced, sexy masseuse, she proves a good foil to the widowed, suit-wearing De Niro. Zack Pearlman steals a few scenes as the intern without a home whom De Niro takes-in as a house-guest. Anders Holm (TV, Pitch Perfect), Andrew Rannells (TV) and Adam DeVine (TV) are not familiar names for international movie audiences. However, chances are, they will be, soon. Watch out for Holm, and for Christina Scherer (The Young and The Restless, True Blood, Two And A Half Men, CSI: NY), who plays Becky, a graduate forced to work as Jules’s secretary. Meyers’s former assistant director Jason Orley lands a part too, while baby Jo Jo Kushner is cute as they come. Also in the cast are Nat Wolff (The Fault in Our Stars) and Linda Lavin (Wanderlust).

Locales and sets are carefully integrated, and the famous brownstone makes its presence felt.

Several layers of messages and nuggets of good old-time wisdom emerge from watching     The Intern:       

· Experience never gets old

· Spouses should let each other pursue their ambitions, without straying away as a defence mechanism, even if they have sacrificed their own goals for the other

· Dress is not the only attribute that defines a person

· Parents should  not keep piling their daily logs on their grown-up (married and parents themselves!) children

· Inquisitiveness and prying are bad personality traits, but sympathy and understanding can be cathartic and healing

· No job is demeaning, if done with sincerity and commitment

· Communication is the key; a face-to-face apology is much more effective than any number of emails or e-messages

· Technology is a means, not an end

Warm, tender and funny in equal measure, The Intern deserves to be a confirmed viewing.

Rating: *** ½ 

Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ygyF-JitaY