The Intern: Because Sometimes Even I Do Film Reviews!

Once again, to anyone who will attempt to use any pictures on this to try to get money from me.  This is a film review and all images underneath are actually free for my use under the FAIR USE ACT since the following is for criticism.  So NYEHH!

Found randomly online.  This is a FILM REVIEW!

So, the other night, because we love De Niro and Hatheway so much, and because we had heard good things, the better half and I watched The Intern.    I will be honest, not a fan.  If you are, that is your opinion and I can see why the general public might like it.  However if you really break it down it really is a slight film with very little to offer, except two A-listers really working for their money and a laugh or two.

So yeah...expect spoilers.  Duh.

Nancy Meyers, the brain behind such films as What Women Want and Father of the Bride, decided to make another movie.  I admit to enjoying both Father of the Bride films and What Women Want.  Both were nice little slices of life, even though they had more to do with the rich, white upper class.    She always manages to get great names for her films and there is a very sweet heartfelt message at the end.  It's something light I can enjoy since most of the film I watch is so deep and heavy.  Seriously, my must see list for last year included Room.  (Captain America: Civil War, if you break it down,  was only okay.  I watch heavy movies.)

The film starts off with De Niro in the middle of filming a kind of audition for an internship at a fashion startup that has apparently been doing very well.  He gets a job as an intern and aid to the boss, Anne Hathaway.  She immediately judges him to be incompetent, without knowing too much about old-fashioned work ethic, but through the film finds him to be the best thing that has ever happened to her and her company.  Sunshine rainbows and happiness.

Robert De Niro is playing a retired widower, Ben, looking to fill his life with activities.  After seeing an advertisement near his local coffee shop, he decides to return to the workplace.  He gets a job at an online fashion site owned by Jules.  Jules is a woman who only cares about the customer and overworks herself and this makes her "hard to work for," as is often repeated.

This is where it starts to fall apart.  And the film has just started.  Jules is constantly referred to as hard to work for, but I never saw a single moment when she wasn't kind, concerned and caring to any and all of her employees and customers.  Other than a breakdown by her assistant, who is obviously in need of a Xanax, and can't handle the workload, no one really seems to do anything but totally adore her.  She even has a house masseuse (by the way they prefer the term massage therapist) for anyone who wants one.  Why didn't they go ahead and make her a Miranda Priestly type, a la The Devil Wears Prada?  Someone who honestly doesn't care what other people think of her.  A powerful strong woman who runs her workers to death.  Missed opportunity.

Why was she the head of a fashion company and not an IT start up?  Women don't just deal in clothes and shoes.  In fact, this is something that bothers me.  So many writers pick a profession for their characters without knowing anything about that profession.  They then proceed to write about that profession without doing more research than a wiki search for a few simple phrases they can pepper in conversation.  They don't bother looking anything up about how the profession actually works.  In this particular case, I am always wondering in this film; does she design the clothes or buy from a second party and sell?  Since her entire life revolves around this job, I want to know more about it.

Ben is immediately liked by everyone at the company when he starts his internship.  He has a few problems with the technology, but there is almost zero focus on it.  A missed opportunity.  Jules kinda thinks he is nosey to start off with, but after cleaning off a desk and driving her through the city when her driver gets drunk she realizes his old-fashioned work ethic is irreplaceable.

Jules is told by some person who works for her, played by Andrew Rannels, that the people giving her money want her to get a CEO to run her company because they don't think her company will continue to grow.  Her job is now to look at possible CEOs and pick one...maybe.  So she starts vetting CEOs.  Not that she has to.  She will still have her company if she doesn't.  Why was it not written that her company would totally disband if she didn't pick a CEO?  That would have added some great tension.  Once again, a missed opportunity.  (Even Mel in What Women Want was about to lose something big if he didn't step up his game.)

Jules's husband, Matt, has given up his much better paying job (which we never see him do) so Jules can have her company.  Her job mainly consisting of riding a bike to meetings in the office, playing with tissue paper and riding in the back of a car while talking to her mother who, apparently, doesn't love her.  Seriously, what does she do?  She has TONS of money and yet I have no idea what she actually does.

In fact, if Matt didn't quit his job I think their kid would be just as well loved.  Honestly, the kid is kinda just there so Jules can be seen once as being incompetent and Matt can be seen as being a jerk.  I kinda wonder why they don't take their obvious wealth and pay for a nanny,   Are they too busy to call a service?  But anyways, Matt is now a house hubby and Jules is paying the bills, with no problem doing so.  However, apparently, the mom's at her daughter's school seem to find her incompetent.  Jules and her constant working is causing a rift between she and her husband.  Apparently, he is having an affair that Jules is aware of, that we don't find out about until almost the end of the movie when Ben sees it in progress.  When it is brought to light both Ben and Jules have a good long cry in their 5 star hotel room about how terrible life is.  How unfair.  Once again, I think he should have been having an affair with one of the mom's we see.  Then we might actually care that he is being unfaithful.

The end is simple.  Jules chooses not to get a CEO.  Matt tells her the affair is over, they cry and agree to never be unfaithful to one another.  Ben is now her chauffeur and assistant to her assistant.  All is happiness sunshine and rainbows.  And nothing all that bad really happened.

There was almost NO conflict.  Here was a great time to talk about ageism and sexism in the workplace and that topic was totally ignored.  The love interest between Renee Russo and De Niro happened too quickly.  So quickly there was zero build up, no sexual tension.  One day she meets him and by the end of the film she is sleeping with him and seems like they are living together after one date we have seen.  Matt and Jules are immediately fine as soon as he admits to the affair and claims it is over.  In real life, trust me, there is more anger than that.  There were two, maybe three moments of humor.  All having to do with De Niro and his sexual preferences.  

A"I might meet Jay-Z"

De Niro "Who is that?"

A "What if Beyonce opens the door?"

De Niro "Ok, I know who that is!"

Honestly, had the leads not been working so hard to be amazing, the film would have been nothing better than the worst made-for-TV garbage.  It was a slight film for adults, filled with hopes and dreams but no real substance. 

But that is just me.