For the first 2/3 of The Intern, I thoroughly enjoyed myself. I didn’t care how good the movie was; I didn’t even want to think about it. I consciously thought, “I’m having a great time.” Then something happened. The story took a serious turn. The instant it happened, I said, “Oh, no,” not just for the sake of the characters involved, but also for the course I knew the movie was then going to take.
It all starts out so light and easy. Jules (Anne Hathaway) is running an online start-up that has grown beyond all expectations. When the company starts a senior intern program, she’s paired with Ben (Robert DeNiro), a 70-year old widower whose retirement is slowly boring him to death. She’s reluctant to take advantage of his services; however, he slowly but surely becomes her right-hand man.
Old age jokes aside, it’s all actually quite touching. Jules isn’t the only one who has something to learn from the experienced businessman who worked for 42 years in the same building when it was a telephone book publisher. Among the Millennials employed at the company, Ben becomes a mentor, not only for their careers, but also for life in general. It suddenly becomes hip to dress nice and carry a briefcase.
The overarching dilemma is that the board of directors is pushing Jules to hire a CEO so that the company doesn’t grow beyond her ability to manage it. She’s reluctant to relinquish control, but admits it might be the best thing for the company… and her personal life. She’s married to Matt (Anders Holm), a rising star in marketing, who quit his job to be a stay-at-home dad for their precocious daughter.
Yeah, The Intern has a precocious child, Paige (Jo Jo Kushner). She’s adorable, but while she could be the deciding factor for Jules to want to spend more time with her family, she’s not. Jules seems more concerned with repairing her relationship with her husband so that she won’t be alone when she grows old. Maybe it’s implied. With the good will the beginning of the movie builds, I’d like to think so.
The more I write this and the more I think about The Intern, it sounds awful to me. I could easily pick it apart. Jules is supposed to be such a terror to work for, yet it’s all hearsay; we don’t actually see her enact her reputation as a bitch. DeNiro is a great actor, but he’s really just mugging for the camera here. Like I’ve said repeatedly, for the first 2/3 of the movie, I didn’t care because I was having such a good time.
When the brisk, humorous pace is literally halted and The Intern becomes mired in drama, there’s too much time to evaluate what you’re watching. You may not like where it’s headed, but you shouldn’t have idle time to critique everything else. Therefore, my recommendation is this: go see the movie, but when Ben takes Paige home after a birthday party, get up and leave.
You know there will be a happy ending, regardless of what happens next; that’s a certainty in a movie like this. You don’t need to see the ugliness that gets you there. The Intern is written and directed by Nancy Meyers (Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated), which may explain its abrupt change in tone. Whether or not you see it depends on if you want to leave the theater feeling good or feeling cheated.
