Ben Stiller Superb in “While We’re Young”
By Skip Sheffield
Palm Beach International Film Festival concluded its 20th
season last week with the prickly, wistful romantic comedy “While We’re Young.”
Now “While We’re Young” has opened nationwide. If you like
Ben Stiller, this movie is a must-see, for it is some of Stiller’s best work to
date.
It is also writer/director Noah Baumbach’s best movie since
“The Squid and the Whale” in 2005.
You know a movie is shooting high when it quotes Goethe in
the opening titles. Ben Stiller is Josh Strebnick, a 44-year-old Manhattan
documentary filmmaker who is stuck, physically and psychologically. After a
promising debut, he has been at work for ten years for a follow-up he just
can’t seem to complete.
His wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) has been more than patient,
but she is at the end of her tether. The couple hasn’t been out of New York for
eight years, when they vacationed in Rome. Josh is too proud to accept help or
advice from Cornelia’s father Leslie, played in a welcome turn by Charles
Grodin.
One day seemingly by chance Josh and Cornelia encounter
Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). Coincidentally goofy but endearing Jamie, 25, is
an aspiring documentary filmmaker who loved Josh’s first film and quotes from
it. Darby makes ice cream and seems content to be in Jamie’s shadow. Jamie and
Darby seem to live and absolutely free and unfettered life. Soon Josh and
Cornelia are drawn into their world of hipster twentysomethings. Jamie films everything
with a tiny video camera.
Josh and Cornelia feel flattered by the attentions of the
young couple. They even cross over the line with stolen kisses.
As with “Greenberg,” Stiller’s previous collaboration with
Baumbach, Stiller plays an annoying, self-centered yet decent, vulnerable
character we learn to sympathize with. Josh feels he has squandered his youth,
and he feels envious of the young and vital Jamie. Yet Jamie is not all he
claims to be. Josh learns to his chagrin one is never too old to learn a new
lesson in human nature.
“While We’re Young” resonates with those who no longer are.
Maybe that’s why I related to this film so much. Maybe you will too.
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