‘While We’re Young’ pits Millenials v Gen X

While We’re Young (7 out of 10)  – Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach; Starring Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Grodin and Adam Horovitz; Rated R for language, in limited release April 10, 2015.

A few weeks ago I was lamenting the lack of good romantic comedies featuring middle-aged couples who still are very much in love, but where that love has matured beyond the initial relationship. This is that movie.

Enter Ben Stiller, a 40-something documentary filmmaker and college film professor. He is married to Naomi Watts, herself accomplished as a producer, most o which has been for her father, Charles Grodin, himself a legendary filmmaker probably on the level of Errol Morris or Werner Herzog. All of their friends are in that stage of their life where they’re having kids, meanwhile Stiller and Watts find themselves in a rut, creatively and personally.

Stiller is laboring over his plodding, boring, 13 hour magnum opus that he has been working on for nearly a decade. And while they want children, it has been hard for them to conceive. They, to somewhat comic effect, talk about how this gives them the freedom to do whatever they want — like fly to Paris immediately. But, because last minute airline tickets are so expensive, and they’d have to cancel certain appointments and. . . “But it’s nice to know we have the freedom. If we want to.” That’s their life.

Enter Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfriend, who are auditing Stiller’s class. They are classic, almost cliched Brooklyn hipster Millenials. They strike up an unlikely friendship as Driver has an idea for a documentary and wants to pick Stiller’s and Watt’s brains.

And so begins a comical clash of cultures as Stiller and Watts try to live in Seyfried’s and Driver’s world. The film is great at skewering both generations and there are a lot of laughs as the older couple tries to recapture some lost youth. 

But we eventually realize that not all is well in hipsterland. Indeed, watching this film with an eye seeing Adam Driver as playing the villain in the upcoming “Star Wars: The Force Awakens” makes for an interesting eventual character reveal about what he’s really up to. I had equal amounts of fun thinking back to Ben Stiller’s seminal Gen X commentary as director and actor in “Reality Bites,”  especially his performance as the smarmy reality show producer and how he interacted with the rest of his cast. 

And while the twist with Driver’s character isn’t necessarily sinister, it’s not nice. And it helps reveal a greater truth about the art of film, especially documentary filmmaking. In short, this is a great film for anyone who works in any sort of creative endeavor, especially if they think of themselves as a “truth teller” in some sort of non-fiction medium.

Yes, it’s partially a self-indulgent meta-film by a filmmaker partially about filmmaking (oh good, we never have those!), but in this case, Noah Baumbach is able to make it a lot of fun and has a lot to say about getting older, growing up, and life in general. 

This is a lovely, fun film and you should consider it a welcome alternative to, say, cars flying from building to building. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. But if you prefer something more funny with a nice, somewhat serious undertone, “While We’re Young” is the perfect date night film for the 40-something couple you might know.

7 out of 10