While We're Young

Dir: Noah Baumbach

2014

****

I love a bit of Noah Baumbach but I have to admit, I wasn't exactly thrilled at the thought of watching a Ben Stiller lead film about a couple in their early forties coming to terms with the fact that they're not that young anymore. However, just ten minutes into 2014's While We're Young my wife and I were agreeing that this was us, this was our life was like right now. I expected clichés upon cliché about what it is like to be in your early forties in 2014 and what the youth of today are actually like but I think Baumbach actually hits the nail on the head. The characteristics in both Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts's childless characters, their friends Marina and Fletcher (Maria Dizzia and Adam 'Ad-Rock' Horovitz), who have just had their first child and in new, much younger friends Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried) are just like people I know who fit in the same category. The details are authentic and I to, as a childless adult, find my friends with kids as they are in the film and also find myself intrigued by the younger generation who do seem to have life sussed. While the film is uncomfortably real sometimes it is also nice to know that others are out there who feel the same. The performances are spot on and the characters are very well written, I wouldn't be surprised if they weren't based on real people. If the overall mood of the film wasn't enough of a pleasant surprise, the surprise appearance of the great Charles Grodin, whose brilliant timing, acting ability and overall presence, is still as strong as it ever was. There were so many moments in the film where I thought 'I do that', 'That's what I've always thought' and 'That's exactly what I do or would have done in that situation'. I liked that it was the adults who were always on the phone, because it is, and I loved it that the Sheman of the ayahuasca ceremony that Stiller, Watts, Driver and Seyfried go to, puts on Vangelis's Blade Runner soundtrack to soften the mood, as I would have totally done the same. I also like the subject explored with regards to the character's professions. There is interesting debate regarding acceptable levels concerning authenticity and craftsmanship and the overall worth of an idea. It's also fascinating how the youth of the story are in agreement with the older generation and vice-versa. It does sometimes feel that my generation have lived under the rules of the previous generation and that they are now congratulating the next generation for breaking them. Old people and young people, I bloody hate them and this film goes some way in voicing my own frustrations, and any film that achieves that is okay by me.