Tracker Pixel for Entry

Growing Older and Growing Up - ‘While We’re Young’

Cinema | April 29th, 2015

Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are Josh and Cornelia, married New Yorkers rocketing through their 40s.

Childless and conflicted about it, the pressure from old friends/new parents Marina (Maria Dizzia) and Fletcher (Adam Horovitz) doesn’t exactly help. Josh is a documentary filmmaker whose current project has consumed nearly a decade of his life. And he’s still shooting footage while his editor Tim (Matthew Maher) toils away without a paycheck.

Cornelia’s father Leslie (Charles Grodin), also a documentarian, is about to receive a career retrospective at Lincoln Center, but Josh is too proud to accept Leslie’s help.

Writer-director Noah Baumbach, as sharp and funny as ever, continues to get better with age – especially when aging is his subject. “While We’re Young,” like the more ebullient “Mistress America,” is acutely aware of the impossible gulf between the unseasoned but effortlessly cool twentysomething and the experienced but fast-fading “grown-up” desperate to hang on to youth and all its real and imagined benefits.

Josh and Cornelia are dazzled by Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), mere babies who use manual typewriters and watch movies on VHS. At first, the blossoming friendship holds the promise of restoring Josh and Cornelia to a more optimistic and creatively charged attitude, but Jamie and Darby might not be as wonderful as they initially appear.

As Josh and Cornelia sweat to keep up with their new friends, Baumbach delights in cooking up the film’s funniest stretch: A series of social comparisons highlighting the generational differences between the Generation Xers on the brink of arthritis (the disorder named in one of the movie’s most hilarious lines) and the hipster millennials too young to identify with any of the original associations that accompany Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long (All Night)” or Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” From Vivaldi to A Tribe Called Quest, Baumbach makes excellent music selections as usual, and James Murphy returns with a solid score (and an instrumental, lullaby version of Bowie’s “Golden Years”).

“While We’re Young” spends more time unpacking Josh’s mental baggage than it does addressing any similar insecurities that might be felt by Cornelia. Additionally, Darby fades away as Jamie’s manipulations come to dominate a plot revolving around truth and ethics in nonfiction cinema.

Regarding the gender imbalance, some reviewers have been harsh. A. O. Scott writes of “While We’re Young,” “Men make movies. Women make ice cream or babies, or help the men make their movies.”

The diminished status of the female characters does not doom the film, but it might make some of Baumbach’s admirers long for more collaboration between the director and partner Greta Gerwig, whose importance to “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America” lends those movies a deeply rewarding feminine perspective.

Instead, we grovel along with Josh, whose self-doubt resides well within Stiller’s wheelhouse. Stiller’s Roger Greenberg is a richer and more interesting character, in part because Baumbach explored the man’s capacity for cruelty in addition to glimmers of redemption.

“While We’re Young” is lighter and broader than “Greenberg,” and the latter’s gradations give way to the former’s more black and white renderings. As the endgame of the newer movie makes perfectly clear, it is Jamie and not Josh, who is the callous, scheming asshole.

Recently in:

By Maddie Robinsonmaddierobi.mr@gmail.com This article discusses topics related to mental health and suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, help is available. Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org. …

By Michael Millermichael.miller@ndsu.edu As I reflect back on July, I want to share a USA Today article from July 3, 1986, celebrating the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty. It has been 138 years since 1886 when…

Thursday, August 8, gates 5 p.m., show starts at 7 p.m.Bluestem Amphitheater, 801 50th Avenue S., MoorheadFormed by guitarist/vocalist Brian Setzer, upright bass player Lee Rocker and drummer Slim Jim Phantom, The Stray Cats…

We’re making progress. By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com Yay Kamala! It is such a relief to see a candidate for POTUS who is actually capable of doing the job and preserving our representative democracy. And, of course, she’s…

By Ed Raymondfargogadfly@gmail.comMen have made a real mess of the world. We should try estrogen.I didn’t bother to count the countries involved in wars because this column won’t be published for a week. But I don’t think any…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com Holiday wine shopping shouldn’t have to be complicated. But unfortunately it can cause unneeded anxiety due to an overabundance of choices. Don’t fret my friends, we once again have you covered…

By Rick Gionrickgion@gmail.com In this land of hotdish and ham, the knoephla soup of German-Russian heritage seems to reign supreme. In my opinion though, the French have the superior soup. With a cheesy top layer, toasted baguette…

Lamb of God celebrates 20th anniversary of a seminal albumby John Showalterjohn.d.showalter@gmail.comPhoto by Travis ShinnWhen the band Burn the Priest formed in 1994, they likely did not realize the impact that they would have on…

By Greg Carlsongregcarlson1@gmail.com Writer-director Nicole Riegel’s sophomore feature “Dandelion” is now playing in theaters following a world premiere at South by Southwest in March. The movie stars KiKi Layne as the…

New Minnesota sculptures include artist’s largest trollBy Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.com According to Danish artist and environmental activist Thomas Dambo, “All trash is treasure.” So far, he and his team have built 138…

By John Showalterjohn.d.showalter@gmail.comHigh Plains Reader had the opportunity to interview two mysterious new game show hosts named Milt and Bradley Barker about an upcoming event they will be putting on at Brewhalla. What…

By Annie Prafckeannieprafcke@gmail.com AUSTIN, Texas – As a Chinese-American, connecting to my culture through food is essential, and no dish brings me back to my mother’s kitchen quite like hotdish. Yes, you heard me right –…

By Sabrina Hornungsabrina@hpr1.comNew Jamestown Brewery Serves up Local FlavorThere’s something delicious brewing out here on the prairie and it just so happens to be the newest brewery west of the Red River and east of the…

By John Showalter  john.d.showalter@gmail.comThey sell fentanyl test strips and kits to harm-reduction organizations and…

JANUARY 19, 1967– MARCH 8, 2023 Brittney Leigh Goodman, 56, of Fargo, N.D., passed away unexpectedly at her home on March 8, 2023. Brittney was born January 19, 1967, to Ruth Wilson Pollock and Donald Ray Goodman, in Hardinsburg,…

By Chad Obanali.hoffman@ndunited.org North Dakotans know that if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is. That is certainly the case with the ill-advised constitutional ballot measure to eliminate the ability of local…