Review: The Intern
Posted by Anura Samara, 11 October 2015
What could an older person bring to a fresh dynamic workplace?
I always find it interesting to see how actors adapt to new roles as they age – we’ve come to know them so well in their standard roles that it can sometimes be hard to see them as anyone else.
Like just about everybody, I’ve grown up watch Robert de Niro in a range of roles. In recent years, he’s gone from being the tough guy to the wise guy, always ready with a joke. In The Intern, he plays a more serious role.
The plot is certainly different to anything else I’ve seen. A retired widower wants to reconnect with the world so he sends a video CV off to apply for a internship program for seniors. He’s accepted at a company founded and run by a young, enthusiastic and increasingly exhausted woman with a husband and child at home. The surface story is about how older people can inject their knowledge and experience into the modern world and how younger people should be willing to listen and learn. It’s about opposites coming to learn and appreciate what the other has to offer.
Unfortunately, there’s not much more after that. Every incident seems to be just an example to connect to the surface story – even a personal crisis is just there to reinforce this one theme – and there are no tangents or competing story lines. Even the positive message from De Niro’s character, that women shouldn’t have to give up their ambitions and careers, struck an awkward note when we were privy to the collapse in her marriage and family life.
As always, Americans can’t do awkward silences and confrontation so all of the drama simply fades away.
In the end, this is just a feel good movie. It makes no great demands on the audience, the characters are likeable enough even if the supporting characters aren’t really believable, and it’s nice to see a film about a close relationship between men and women with no underlying sexual tensions (although the creators had to ensure the male lead was so much older).
At least Robert De Niro has demonstrated his versatility and capacity to adapt. He’s not so much the wise guy as the father figure these days.
Categories: Movies
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