Director: Nancy Meyers
Distributor: Warner Home Video
Duration: 121 minutes
The Intern (Blu-ray) – Movie Review
An internship is often a scary undertaking, especially if you don’t know whether you will become the company’s slave, or will actually learn something in the process. To undergo this drudged affaire when you’re well above the retirement age is something not many of us will consider, or even want to experience, it’s still an interesting concept. While we hope Robert De Niro will not think about retiring from his acting career any time soon, we still get a glimpse of how his life might be, if he would be without a job after his fruitful career.
Ben (Robert De Niro) has reached the age of seventy and has had a bountiful life thanks to his successful career, his loving family, his grandchild and so on. While one would certainly love to relax during his retirement, Ben has had the misfortune of losing his wife at the age of 67 and thus he has no one to truly grow old with, and has to find enough activities to fill every single day that passes by. Nonetheless, he has found a certain routine, which makes time go by faster, as well as visit his family enough, but he is growing weary of having to depend on his family and come up with day-to-day activities. When he stumbles upon an ad that states a local company is hiring senior citizens for an internship, Ben decides to take a leap of faith and send in his, modernized, video resume. Of course, with his charisma and his conviction it comes as no surprise he was able to land the job and start his glorious internship at the online fashion company, About The Fit. At least, so he thought.
When Ben gets assigned to become Jules’ (Anne Hathaway) personal intern, it’s immediately clear that the ambitious entrepreneur has not time to keep herself occupied with a senior, who thinks he can still be useful. Nonetheless, even though Jules’ cry for help never comes, Ben does his best to find useful tasks around the office, and quickly befriends all who work around him. He becomes close with the young trio, Jason (Adam Devine), Davis (Zack Pearlman) and Lewis (Jason Orley), who are starting to look at him as some kind of a father figure. That being said, Ben soon after grows to become a hot item in the office, as he is truly doing his best and when a small chance arrives to start helping Jules, perhaps even she can see what he’s worth.
Overall for a feelgood movie, the pace is rather slow, which makes it seem as if some scenes are being dragged out, while they are actually not, or prove to be rather important later on. Nonetheless, this movie might have been a bit more ‘upbeat’ if some things scurried along a bit more fluently. That being said, the plot is decently worked out, but proves to be rather predictable at times, and of course follows the typical flow of movies like this, promising a sobby intermezzo and a rather happy end in the process.
Acting performances are what makes this movie rather pleasant to watch and keep the otherwise rather cheesy plot intact. Robert De Niro does a great job in playing the rather tranquil Ben, who truly wants to be a valuable asset once again, giving a certain purpose to his life. Anne Hathaway proves to be the perfect opposite of Ben, which creates a decent amount of chemistry, of course not in a romantic sense. It was quite surprising to see Adam DeVine star with his co-star from Workaholics, Anders Holm, who ends up playing Jules’ husband Matt. While it’s fun to see stars from amusing shows like theirs appear in a feelgood flick, Anders looks rather unnatural as Jules’ spouse. Other cameo’s are also well appreciated, especially when seeing Rene Russo do a rather convincing job as the company’s masseuse. Overall everyone did a decent job, only certain cast choices were a tad weird.
The Intern’s Blu-ray release comes with a few short extras, only spanning roughly fifteen minutes of extra content, but they shed some light on the overall idea of the movie and the director and writer. Other than that, you’ll see a bit more about the trio that befriended Ben. Overall these are simple, yet welcome special features, but the movie did not necessarily need extra content.
Conclusion
The Intern proves to be one of those movies that is fun to watch once, call forth a few emotions and move on. While the overall plot is interesting, some parts feel a bit dragged out, but everything always feels pleasant, yet never truly outstanding. If you’re looking for a feelgood movie to fill an evening, be it alone or with friends, this one might prove to be entertaining.
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