Think Mary Poppins, but older, and a guy, and retired.
By Josh Lasser
There are definite expectations one has with a lighthearted, feel good, comedy, which is certainly an appropriate way to describe Nancy Meyers’ The Intern. Watching such a movie, one plans to laugh regularly, worry a little (but not too much), and that everything will work itself out before the credits roll.
Much of what one would expect exists in the mostly fun, generally breezy The Intern, a movie which features Anne Hathaway as Jules Ostin, the head of a clothing website she created, and Robert De Niro as Ben Whittaker, the titular intern. Yes, there’s a senior citizen internship program at the company, the reasons are briefly—and not very believably—explained. which is absolutely fine as it is only a way to get the actual story started.
Ben worked very successfully for nearly 40 years making phone books, but after retirement realizes he needs something to do and the senior citizen internship program at Jules’ company, About the Fit, seems right. Impressing everyone during the interview stage, Ben is assigned to be Jules’ intern and while she’s reluctant at first, she soon realizes that Ben is a smart, kind, caring, wonderful man.
As fun as it may be, Ben’s character is actually rather odd. Ben is, essentially, the Mary Poppins of widowers. He comes complete with rules for living—tuck your shirt in, shave every day, and always have a handkerchief handy to name a few—and knows how to make people feel at ease. If the audience wasn’t made fully aware that he is a widower and has a child and grandchild, one might think that he had arrived in Brooklyn when the wind changed direction and his umbrella brought him there.
We want to hear it.
The Intern is in no way about Ben learning anything; it is about him coming to this very successful startup website and teaching the young folks there how to make it through life. He is given a love interest in the form of About the Fit’s in-house masseuse, Fiona (Rene Russo), but that relationship simply happens. There are no complications with it, no ups and downs.
It is Jules who, in particular, needs Ben’s help as the company is growing faster than she can manage. Jules is struggling not just with the company, but also balancing her home life—including husband, Matt (Anders Holm), and daughter, Paige (JoJo Kushner)—with work.
So, Ben helps. He offers advice, he offers wisdom, and he shows just what it is that made him a success in business, and life, through the years. The audience doesn’t really get any sort of proof of his being a success other than his having a very nice house in Brooklyn, but as it is mentioned repeatedly, it is accepted.
In truth, the entire film proceeds quite swimmingly for the majority of the time, with minor issues and slight complications until things go more than a little off the rails. Jules’ problems turn out to be far more serious than one could have predicted and, separately, there’s even a break-in that Ben organizes. The less one considers just how or why this happens, the better.
These moments feel completely out of line with everything else that occurs. The actual sense one gets watching them unfold is that at some point Meyers (who also wrote the script), or someone else, realized that the stakes simply aren’t high enough, that there aren’t enough difficulties for the characters to overcome. Worse, they then try two totally different routes to fix the problem, a zany heist and seriously dark turmoil, two things that not only don’t fit in the rest of the film, but don’t belong together. Not only that, but the addition of these unnecessary problems actually causes another one that had been building to disappear from the film.
When the closing credits do finally roll, the ending feels totally unearned. The complications that are added way too late are then fixed all too magically. It takes a sweet, good-natured film and turns it into something else entirely before seeming to decide that it actually doesn’t want to go down that route.
The culture clash between Baby Boomers and Millennials makes a lot of sense and feels like a topic worthy of exploration. The Intern starts down that road and there is a lot of good in it. Both De Niro and Hathaway offer enough charm and humor to keep it afloat, and they are aided with a solid supporting cast which also includes Adam DeVine, Christina Scherer, Andrew Rannells, and Zack Pearlman. It is just unfortunate that the film decides that it needs to increase the stakes, and to do so late in the goings-on.
