The Intern

Director: Nancy Meyers
Starring: Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, Nat Wolff, Celia Weston, JoJo Kushner
Running Time: 121 min.
Rating: PG-13

★★★ (out of ★★★★) 

The Intern reminds us just how much we take some of our biggest movie stars for granted. They're so omnipresent and overexposed in our culture it's easy to forget why we even cared about them to begin with. Sometimes it just takes them simply playing normal, everyday people to remember that some of them also happen to be great actors. Two such stars headline Nancy Meyers' latest, which is advertised as a harmless, fluffy workplace rom-com that's a reasonable enough excuse to kill two hours, for both younger and older audiences. That description is at least partially true, as it often is for many of Meyers' films. But there's really something to be said for doing it well, and The Intern manages to get all the little things right.  It's entirely pleasurable experience from beginning to end with very few problems and a plot that isn't so much surprising as it is insightful and easygoing. And it isn't all that unrealistic in terms of the central topic it deftly handles with the help of its co-leads, who are generations apart, but entirely on the same page when it comes to making this material click.

The timely script not only avoids talking down to audiences about topics like workplace gender politics, social media, stay-at-home dads, and the generation gap, but actually goes a step further in making intelligent observations about them. Few mainstream American comedies would actively avoid depicting a CEO of a major company (much less a female one) as a tyrant or an elderly retiree as anything other than a senile loon. This one does, finding Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway as charming and likable as they've recently been, with the former doing his most subdued work in years. Its two hours go down easily, as this delivers on nearly all its comedic and dramatic potential. 

Looking to escape the malaise of his retirement as a phone book company executive, seventy-year-old widower Ben Whittaker (De Niro) applies to a senior citizen internship program, with the hopes of briefly rejoining the workforce to positively contribute to society. He says as much in his YouTube video, which lands him an interview and eventual job with About The Fit, a Brooklyn-based e-commerce fashion startup founded by current CEO Jules Ostin (Hathaway), whose overnight success, but relative inexperience, is overwhelming her. When Ben is assigned to the Type A Jules, she begrudgingly takes him in, as her initial skepticism of this internship program (and seniors in general), begins to wane after realizing he's more than fully capable of handling a wide variety of tasks.

Charming the entire office with his winning personality and knowledge, Ben soon has a positive influence on Jules, whose marriage has been suffering since her husband Matt (Anders Holm) gave up his career to become a stay-at-home dad to their young daughter, Paige (JoJo Kushner). Crumbling under the pressures of running her company, she finds an unlikely friend and father figure in Ben, who finds he might also have a lot to learn from the younger generation.

Given its story structure and thematic content, this could still be considered your typical rom-com, though there's hardly any romance to speak of and most entries in that genre aren't typically this restrained. That's evident from the very first scene, in which Ben records a video resume you actually believe would get this clearly articulate senior through the door for an interview and land him the position in a heartbeat. While much of that credit goes to De Niro's firm grip on the material, he stills needs dialogue of substance to deliver and Meyers' script continually comes through on that front. It was inevitable we'd get jokes about Ben's cluelessness about current technology as he steps into a progressive, contemporary office filled with Millennials, but the movie doesn't dwell on it or make Ben the butt of the joke. Even social media is incorporated fairly well into the plot without hammering us over the head with it.

While we're frequently laughing with Ben rather than at him, it's easy to imagine a lesser script doing the opposite, instead depicting him as an old blowhard set in his stubborn ways. If anything, he's as open to learning new things as his far younger co-workers are to learning from him. They don't go for easy Millennial jokes either, as all the employees at this company seem fairly competent rather than coming across as extras in an SNL skit skewering young people.

Whether it's Father of the Bride or It's Complicated, Meyers' films are frequently criticized for living in fantasy land, enveloping its audience in a saccharine Hollywood wish-fulfillment. To an extent that's true, but here's the rare case where her depiction is actually closer to reality than a snarkier, more negative portrayal would be. And it's also nice to see a comedy where characters aren't living in impossibly expensive New York City apartments because it looks nice on camera, but because their salaries and income levels dictate that they should.

If the portrayal of Ben is smart, the depiction of Jules may be even wiser. Removing the fact she's a female CEO and the whole stay-at-home-dad issue, imagine how tempting it must have been to write this character as a total bitch for comedy and conflict. And with Hathaway in the role the temptation was likely far greater to create a kind of reverse Devil Wears Prada, this time sending up media and public perception of the actress. But Meyers is too clever for that.

By making Jules an insecure CEO full of self-doubt that she can even handle this job, it makes her eventual bond with Ben mean more because his advice becomes invaluable. And just look at Jules' husband. They actually had the guts to cast some unknown, normal looking hipster guy in the role opposite Hathaway. The second we see them together something seems off. Why? Because it's realistic. And he seems like just the kind of person who would be thrown for a loop when Jules' career ascension completely alters their lives.

There's a romantic subplot involving Ben and the company masseuse (played by Rene Russo) that's kind of a throwaway until you start to realize that if the roles were reversed and Russo's character were a man, her behavior could result in termination or worse. Did the movie intentionally do this as a sly commentary on gender politics? Of course not. But it's there. And as far as third act complications go, the one involving Jules is actually pretty good, taking that gender reversal theme as far as it goes. The ending is a bit tidy, but it isn't often that a romantic comedy goes into the final stretch with a woman holding as many cards as Jules does here.

At this point, Hathaway could convincingly play any occupation and as this uncertain CEO, she walks a fine line between being a little bit prickly and demanding, while almost being entirely too good-hearted a person to succeed in the position she's been put in. Making matters more interesting is that the person who put her there was herself, sometimes much to her own disbelief. Hathaway effectively draws a contrast in how Jules behaves at work and at home, startling for both its similarities and differences. And it's safe to say if the character was written as one-dimensionally as the trailers implied, she would have found a way to make that work just as well.

De Niro is pretty much a revelation here. "Subtle" isn't exactly a word that jumps to mind when considering his comedic work and so much of what he does dramatically rests on kind of a tough guy persona. This is so different from anything he's done recently because he dials everything down so much and just conveys this quiet, confident intelligence that lets us know that Ben knows the deal. At one point Jules remarks just how observant Ben is and the same description can just as easily be applied to De Niro's performance, which was good enough for a nomination if more people bothered to take it seriously. They really should have.

If there's one thing missing, it's conflict or stakes of any kind,It's so efficiently written and the characters so smart and likable that you keep waiting for the other shoe to drop. But let's be honest. You don't see a Nancy Meyers movie for conflict any more than you'd watch Garry Marshall's Mother's Day for explosions. It's supposed to be a palette cleanser, as you root for good people essentially being good to each other for two hours. As that, it's a phenomenal success.

There's a couple of scenes in the film where Ben and Jules are talking about their lives and it feels so organic. Two people of entirely different ages and generations finding a common ground. The line between employee and employer disappears as two friends bond over their disparate situations, that aren't quite as far apart as you'd think. And it doesn't feel corny or creepy in the slightest because of these two great actors and the fact that the right creative choices were made by Meyers to have them land naturally at this point. The Intern doesn't reinvent the wheel but is does occasionally surprise with just how much it accomplishes with a relatively simple but engaging premise.
  

Nightcrawler

Director: Dan Gilroy
Starring: Jake Gyllenhaal, Rene Russo, Riz Ahmed, Bill Paxton, Ann Cusack, Kevin Rahm
Running Time: 117 min.
Rating: R

★★★ ½ (out of ★★★★)

"I'd like to think if you're seeing me, you're having the worst day of your life."

Dan Gilroy's satirical crime thriller Nightcrawler is one of the better recent examples of preserving a central character's aura of mystery by letting the actor fill in the blanks. When an obsessive, ambitious L.A. drifter stumbles into the adrenaline-fueled world of recording violent crimes and accidents to sell to local news stations, it's obvious early on he isn't the type who "stumbles" into anything. He sets his sights. With a topic that's both curiously timeless and dated at the same time, it could have been a conventional thriller if not for the fact our protagonist becomes the antagonist, just as depraved as the criminals he furiously covets footage of, if not more so. While I often questioned the believability of events unfolding, the actor carrying them never strikes a false note. It's because of Jake Gyllenhaal's transformative performance that we never know where this guy's coming from or where his head's at. But wherever it is, it's a frightening place.

When resourceful but unemployed Louis Bloom's (Gyllenhaal) spontaneous plan to land a job at an L.A. construction site falls through when the manager discovers he's a thief, he realizes it's time to change course. After witnessing a film crew shooting footage of a horrific car crash, he gets the idea to become a "Nightcrawler," obtaining a camcorder and radio scanner to follow the action and shop the footage to the highest bidding local news station. After impressing KWLA News Director Nina Romina (Rene Russo) with his footage of a carjacking, he picks her brain for advice and hires a young assistant named Rick (Riz Ahmed), who's desperate enough for cash he'll do anything.

Nina's guidelines are simple: Record violent crimes in affluent neighborhoods. And get there first. As her ratings rise and Lou's fledgling business gathers steam, he gets more directly involved in the action, using illegal tactics to get the footage and manipulating events to advance his career. A lesser film  would be about whether he's willing to sell his soul for a future in broadcast journalism. But this character has no soul, and just as he obsessively captures these crime scenes, we compulsively anticipate how far he's willing to push the envelope.

Initially, it's hard not to at least begrudgingly respect Lou's tenacity and ambition, even if his philosophies seem to have sprouted from reading too many Donald Trump and Tony Robbins books. Reciting verbiage from business manuals and seminars to every prospective employer (or hapless employee) he encounters in a robotic, mechanical tone, He's very smart and knows it, but there's also something wrong with him, the extent of which doesn't completely reveal itself until someone finally gives him praise, and a chance to prove himself.

Journalistic integrity isn't high on Nina's priority list, so she's naturally intrigued by the newcomer's inspired work, which only feeds her cutthroat pursuit of ratings at any cost. "If it bleeds, it leads." It's a motto that would likely disgust her colleague, Frank Kruse (Kevin Rahm), the lone vice of moral reason in the newsroom. While Nina's almost equally bad with people in a different way, Lou's the full-blown sociopath, especially during his disturbing diner "interview" with his future assistant, whose insecurity and desperation he sniffs out like a blood hound.

What's so interesting about Lou is that the more professional he tries to act, the crazier he comes off, and the scarier he gets. With Rick as his navigator, he races from one crime scene to to the next with camcorder in hand, hoping to beat out competitors like Joe Loder (Bill Paxton), who want him on his team. But Lou's building an enterprise and unpolished hustlers don't figure into his plans and he's definitely not interested in sharing a piece of the pie. When he starts arriving at crime scenes prior to police and tampering with evidence, the possibility exists his moral problems could become legal ones.  

Whether this is the best performance of Jake Gyllenhaal's career thus far is debatable, but it's definitely up there and easily the most deranged character he's had an opportunity to tackle. At first, Lou seems a little odd and mischievous. Then, a little weird. It isn't long before we're really worried about the guy, until realizing our concern should really be for anyone who gets near him, either personally or professionally. He's what author Bret Easton Ellis would call an "emotional vampire," sucking the humanity out of everyone he encounters, with maybe one exception, and only because she seems to have so little left. The most extreme, obvious comparison is American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, even if Gyllenhaal's physical transformation (a loss of over twenty pounds) more closely resembles Christian Bale's in The Machinist. For the first time, Gyllenhaal scared me, both in appearance and demeanor. Doing that while making the character not completely unlikable, and even at points charming and charismatic, would seem to be a herculean task for any actor.

He has the ideal co-star in Rene Russo, who's given her meatiest, most complex role in ages. You can tell Nina's been through the ringer, perhaps having to prove herself in a man's world for too long, turning her bitter and hard-edged. Russo's careful not to make that the cliche it could have been and screenwriter and first-time director Gilroy treads carefully over their relationship. If anyone can respect Lou's ruthless ambition it's her, and while it's tempting to say she doesn't even know what she's gotten into, she completely does and loves it. Refreshingly, neither have a conscience and are drawn as entertainingly deplorable as possible. But the real star might be DP Robert Elswit's rendering of a decaying, grungy nighttime L.A. bathed in neon lights that's so distinctive it feels like the lost film in Thom Andersen's Los Angeles Plays Itself. James Newton Howard's score hums over the emotionally vacant, sometimes brutal action, creating a jarring contradiction.

Even within the boundaries of  media satire and social commentary it's intended, some of the events that occur while marching toward it's big car chase finale are almost to preposterous to take seriously at all, if we're even expected to. It's difficult to fathom that Lou could go as far as he does without being arrested or killed or that in this overly PC media age any news director wouldn't be immediately canned attempting to air what she does. This begs the question of exactly when these events are supposed to be taking place since I wavered on that issue at various points. It's easy to reimagine a far lesser version of this as one of those '90's direct-to-DVD thrillers. Luckily, it's not that at all and everyone involved skillfully sells it. Like Lou, we know what we're watching a crash, but it's impossible to turn away.