The Intern

Or: A Gentlewoman’s Gentleman

Over the past few days I’ve seen a lot of “heavy” films. Stories with avant guard styles, tortured performances, and leaden messages of doom and despair. Films so weighted I happily shed them once I left the theater, and hammered out my thoughts. I feel somewhat sheepish then, that the piece that waked my admiration and stroked my stand-on-edge-hair flat is a slightly ridiculous comedy about a floor full of feckless twirtysomethings and one gentlewoman’s gentleman. Ben Whitaker (Robert DeNero) widowed for ten years and in his 70th year, decides to apply for a senior internship, the newest fad fling of About the Fit, an online clothing service. It’s founder. Jules Osten (Anne Hathaway) having risen to the top of her field (presumably after vanquishing Miranda Priestly (Meryl Streep) in an epic battle of wills and shoe dueling). struggles to juggle her business and her family, and finds a load bearing pillar in her gentle and experienced intern.

If that sounds a little cream puffy to you … what can be said. We’ve lost the taste for tales of the troubles of happy people, and while not exactly a teeth-rotting fun-fest, the story is whimsical and the capers of the many “Yutes” Ben takes under his win, boarder on the absurd (though this makes them no less entertaining). But while the world is small it is earnest and intense. Writer/Director Nancy Myers is a dab hand of polite comedy and natural speech, the script sparkles and the bright, shining world of About the Fit is elegantly packaged. Once scene in particular, when Jules comes to a breaking point, cracking jokes about her darkest fears as she uncorks them, is a testament to both Myers writing and Hathaway's skill at playing multiple emotional chords simultaneously.

Hathaway is only matched in the film by Jule’s daughter Paige (Jojo Kushner), who not only portrayed a child miraculously but also takes on a great deal of her mother’s characteristics.

The film is a little heavy handed (though arguably not near forceful enough) in its politics, but the story of a goodhearted gentlemen introducing a dash of civility and care into a mad-cap generation and fermenting a friendship with a troubled but crusading heroine, though hardly heavy, is a deeply enjoyable time in the cinema. It still bobs around my head like a cheerful balloon and it’s good natured, excellent wit, and buoyant optimism will continue bobbing for a long time to come.