Noah Baumbach’s While We’re Young is the filmmaker’s best film to date. I can hear a few grumbles now from those with good memories — if it’s his best movie, then why did I give it four-and-a-half stars, when I gave his last film, Frances Ha (2013), the full five stars? Without getting into the inherent imbecility of star ratings (or any other “grading” system geared to people who don’t want to actually read the reviews), it’s a fair question. The best answer I can give is that Frances Ha is almost completely successful within its somewhat limited aims. While We’re Young is more complex and ambitious. It has a depth of penetration that may well haunt you for days. But it also has a few missteps — perhaps part of its quality — that are hard to brush aside. Even so, it is a great film — the first such of 2015.
Essentially, While We’re Young is a comedy. In many respects, it’s close to Woody Allen. The dividing line between Ben Stiller’s Josh, a failing — maybe failed — documentarian, and Allen’s Cliff Stern in Crimes and Misdemeanors (1989) is very thin. The difference lies in the areas Baumbach is exploring. His film could be called Josh’s Adventures in Hipster Land. Josh is 44 and at that uncomfortable — and perilous — time of life when you start to feel out of touch with many (or even most) of your circle of friends. Priorities and interests have changed. There may even be the perception that your old friends have “sold out” and are — unlike you, of course — getting old and boring. (If you recognize yourself here, don’t feel alone — so do I.) So both Josh and his equally disenfranchised-feeling wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are easily drawn into the world of an attentive younger hipster couple, Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). They — especially Josh, whose sagging ego is stroked by Jamie’s fannish gushing over his work — are, in fact, too easily drawn into this world.
Perspective is easily and quickly lost. Josh, in particular, is taken with the hipster couple and their cult of the ironic and the retro. “It’s like they’ve collected all the stuff we threw out,” enthuses Josh, who finds that with them it looks good. He revels in the fact that they watch crappy VHS tapes and make no distinction between things like Citizen Kane and The Goonies. This prompts his old friend Fletcher (Adam Horovitz) to ask, “Since when is The Goonies a good movie?” What Josh is losing sight of is that his new friends’ lack of judgmental thought is also a lack of discernment of any kind. When Jamie forces Josh to listen to Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger,” he remarks, “I remember when that was just a bad song,” but he’s altogether too quick to just accept it. What remains just out of Josh’s reach — until circumstances force him to realize it — is that this lack of discrimination in art is perhaps indicative of a larger lack of values of any kind.
At this point, you would be excused for thinking that While We’re Young is a generation gap yarn — Generation X meets the millennials. That’s not wrong, but it significantly sells the depth of the movie short because it’s about much more than that. Baumbach’s hipsters — as they scrounge through the past to try to create a cultural identity of their own — are ultimately not likable, but the portrait is not entirely unsympathetic. (As an aging boomer who co-opted art and pop culture created 20-plus years before I was born, I can kind of understand some of this.) Their value-challenged shortcomings — a symptom of an age where truth and lies sometimes become hard to separate — are partly naivete. It’s the same mindset that keeps them from ever identifying themselves as hipsters. (Like people who make mumblecore movies, hipsters almost never recognize themselves as part of that group.)
There’s more here. Questions of the difference between idealism and egotistical stubbornness are raised. The “transformative magic” of parenthood is questioned. The very nature of the presumed honesty of documentaries is also brought into play. Josh’s wildly successful — and success-oriented — documentarian father-in-law (Charles Grodin) may, in his way, be just as phony as Jamie. (In a way, this is an old issue when you consider how much of such landmark documentaries as Nanook of the North (1922), Chang (1927) and Man of Aran (1934) were staged or outright falsified to suit the filmmakers’ desire.) The amount of undercurrents in this remarkably dense film more than overshadow its occasional errors in judgment. Rated R for language.
So, at last Ben Stiller gets to be in a “generational” movie that doesn’t suck badly. I’ll never forget the egregious Reality Bites.
Oh, God, that was awful. He was kind of spokesman for Generation X back then.
Can’t believe you rated this one so high, as much as I like Baumbach the trailer made this one seem like one to wait and see on streaming or DVD. I think the release most are waiting for is Mistress America which imdb shows is also slated for this year. Ken, did you ever check out Kicking and Screaming I think its still streaming on Netflix.
Well, you can wait for streaming, if you like. Not sure how you arrive at what “most” are waiting for, though. Define “most.”
Did you ever see Kicking and Screaming its kind of like his version of a 90’s Whit Stillman film. How was Ad Rock’s( Adam Horovitz) acting in this? I think this is his first real big acting role.
How was Ad Rock’s( Adam Horovitz) acting in this?
He’s good. Everyone’s good here.
I’ll tell you whether I’ve seen Kicking and Screaming when you tell me who these “most” are.
Comments sections, message boards.
Oh, right. That was the same way they figured out that Snakes on a Plane was going to be a big hit. (Hint: It bombed.) A very sound barometer.
No, I haven’t seen Kicking and Screaming.
And what led to the late addition of a certain Samuel L. Jackson line!
Really, that movie would have been a chore were it not for an audience member with a high-pitched laugh who found almost all of the dumb gags funny.
A trailer is not the movie.
I know I know, but I think it was the hip hop class thing in the trailer that made me roll my eyes.
One sequence is also not the movie — especially one sequence out of context. I, of course, have the disadvantage of actually having seen the movie.
If you’re going to let that – which in the actual work I found charming and something that’s used shortly thereafter to great effect – get in the way of a great film, so be it.
OK you have convinced me, but how is the James Murphy score? I liked his Greenberg score, but this seems like a better fit since he’s the guy that wrote “Losing My Edge.”
The score is noticeable and pleasant. There is also spot-on placement of Vivaldi, A Tribe Called Quest, Vangelis and 2Pac.
There was something I liked, too, but I can’t think what it was. (And, no, it wasn’t “Eye of the Tiger.”) Maybe it was just seeing a Lola vs. Powerman album.
I had to look at the soundtrack because I thought that one song was Tangerine Dream from Risky Business, but it was a James Murphy song.
Ditto. The best parts were in the trailer. I love Ben Stiller and wanted so much to like this one, but left feeling disappointed, confused and sore (I can only sit for so long). I actually enjoyed Greenberg more.
I have no earthly idea what you’re ditto-ing.
I was replying to “Me” and his comment “Can’t believe you rated this one so high…” but there were so many comments and re-comments between his and mine that this was not apparent. Sorry for the confusion.
This movie disappointed me almost as much as “Best Exotic Marigold Hotel”. Neither lived up to their trailers.
But bear in mind “Me” was basing his remark strictly on having seen the trailer.
Good to see Grodin back out there, he was great on Louie last season.
I was set for the film to close with the scene between Josh, Cornelia, and the bottle of Jim Beam and I’m still not sure it shouldn’t have. Does anyone else feel the final airport bit was akin to the Turkish politics that Josh needed to remove from his sprawling documentary?
But oh did I love this movie. Baumbach has got his finger directly on the pulse. It’s wonderful that his movie that deals with the biggest ideas is also his most fun. I expect this to comfortably land in my top five for the year.
I tend to think the film would not have been hurt by the removal of the airport scene. And it may have been helped, since the scene — even with its last minute reservations — tends to suggest things I’m not sure the film means to suggest. I’ll have to see how this feels on subsequent viewings.
I had similar reservations with this scene as I did with the April/Andy storyline in the Parks & Rec finale, but then I think that twist changes the circumstances enough and leaves things in that textbook Baumbach ambiguity where we can all choose our own adventures for these characters.
I know I’m weird, but I spend very little — if any — time on what happened next scenarios.
I think that’s normal – at least it’s the way I’m wired, too. My point is that Baumbach’s films often leave his characters at a crossroads and, based on one’s attachment to that character or characters, one may have a brief flash of “oh, they’re going to be better/worse off” and little more. For me, it’s not a “what will they be doing X years from now?” situation, and few films are.
Many thoughts. If you want to publish any, fine. If none, fine. In no particular order:
_Ben Stiller steals the show. Without him, the movie is soap opera schlock (plus some interesting culture critique and satire).
-Is Stiller in the process of becoming our modern Chaplin/Keaton? Several scenes suggest this. Also suggested is the schlemeii of Yiddish comedy.
I thought the last 2/3 minutes were clever and comical, with the film’s ambivalence about parenting remaining and enhanced.
Yes, echos of some of Woody Allen, surely.
Like much of Comedy Central’s juvenile stuff, the laugh-out–loud lines (for the audience I was part of) had mostly to do withe the use of “Fuck” and “shit” in various forms. The former was used gratuitously over 30 times, the latter, over 10. It now seems to be part of the “sophistication” of hip but shallow minds to use this constantly, mainly as an adjective.
Ten years!! What the hell was he doing all that time??
And what could this “doc” have become, even at its best?? Surely not another “My Dinner with Charlie.”
Out on a limb – – – Isn’t this country now becoming ever fuller of conformist, shallow people who want to become “Artists” instead of doing “an honest day’s work”? in a recent census, under the heading “Vocation” 30,000 people in New Jersey labeled themselves “writers. In Asheville we have about that many singer/songwriters. The trend should continue with the Electronic Age ensnaring us.
“Out on a limb – – – Isn’t this country now becoming ever fuller of conformist, shallow people who want to become “Artists” instead of doing “an honest day’s work?”
The number of these “aspiring artists” is not greater, it just seems that way because social media now gives every Tom, Dick and Harriet the ability to put their “art” out into the public domain without discrimination. In the past, there were gate-keepers to separate the wheat from the chaff, such as publishers, critics, galleries. Now everybody’s opinion, viewpoint or interpretation is (or at least seems) as relevant as the next person’s.
Is this GOOD? I cannot say. It just IS. But I agree with you that is certainly APPEARS to contribute to a lower standard of what constitutes “art”. On the other hand, as one who has frequently bemoaned the elitist self-absorption and arrogance of too many artists, I am almost compelled to applaud the democratizing effects of social media on the arts.
Almost.
The number of these “aspiring artists” is not greater, it just seems that way because social media now gives every Tom, Dick and Harriet the ability to put their “art” out into the public domain without discrimination. In the past, there were gate-keepers to separate the wheat from the chaff, such as publishers, critics, galleries. Now everybody’s opinion, viewpoint or interpretation is (or at least seems) as relevant as the next person’s.
Is this GOOD? I cannot say. It just IS. But I agree with you that is certainly APPEARS to contribute to a lower standard of what constitutes “art”. On the other hand, as one who has frequently bemoaned the elitist self-absorption and arrogance of too many artists, I am almost compelled to applaud the democratizing effects of social media on the arts.
“Is this GOOD?” I have seen absolutely no evidence that it has done anything good. What — apart from ever greater levels of self-absorption and narcissism — has social media actually accomplished? I mean apart from YouTube clips bringing fleeting fame to a few performers — vying for “hits” against cute animal videos — what have you seen it actually create? The “gatekeepers” are still there when it comes to getting an artist a paying job. Do you honestly believe that “everybody’s opinion, viewpoint or interpretation is (or at least seems) as relevant as the next person’s”? Granted, the internet has given a “voice” — often disembodied and anonymous (your own comments are essentially anonymous) — to everyone with an internet connection. The question is whether or not these folks all have anything to say worth hearing (reading) — not to mention whether or not they can express themselves clearly.
Of course, I’m not sure that we’re on the same page about “the elitist self-absorption and arrogance of too many artists.” That needs elaboration — like what it means in this context. Examples would be helpful.
You are right that it’s less that there are more artists, wanna-be artists, artistic pretenders, etc. now, but that mass communication — nevermind social media — has made their existence more obvious. (That’s rather like our fantasy of the “good old days,” which is fed by the fact that in those “good old days” much was going on that we simply didn’t hear about. It’s not that they were necessarily good, only that we were ignorant.) Truth is it isn’t so much that social media has given everybody a voice, it’s that it’s given us a too easily used voice. Can’t get your book published? Well, there are always the vanity presses — and they’re not new, though they operate a little differently now with print-on-demand. It’s still self-publishing. Can’t get a job as a movie critic? Set up your own website. Can’t get your movie released? Put it on Vimeo. Want to bitch out a critic? Just go to the comment section of any paper with an online presence. (You used to actually have to write a letter and mail it. Imagine that! Time, thought, and a small investment were required.) The problem with all of this — well, one of the problems — is whether or not you can make any money at it.
Yes, I am convinced that social media SEEMS to give equal voice to lay critics as to professionals, but I can (and I would hope that most people as well can) tell the difference between INFORMED criticism by educated and trained critics, and those of us mere mortals.
But we peons DO occasionally have something to say and I am glad (sort of) that we have somewhere to say it without being censored or moderated into insignificance, like the days when our only outlet was the “letters to the editor” page of newspapers.
As for elitism in art, I am thinking of actors who testify before Congress (as if a career PRETENDING to be something you are not makes you a witness in anything other than make-believe), pop stars preaching to world leaders (you have great pipes, Bono, so just shut up and sing) or those who gain critical acclaim by dropping crucifixes in piss (how is this different from the Taliban exploding Buddhas or ISIS bulldozing Syria’s oldest ruins?)
I must amend: As for elitism in art, I am thinking of actors who testify before Congress (as if a career PRETENDING to be something you are not makes you aN EXPERT witness in anything other than make-believe)
Yes, I am convinced that social media SEEMS to give equal voice to lay critics as to professionals, but I can (and I would hope that most people as well can) tell the difference between INFORMED criticism by educated and trained critics, and those of us mere mortals.
I think I need your definition of social media here. This, for example, is not really social media. It’s merely an outgrowth of the paper having an online presence.
But we peons DO occasionally have something to say and I am glad (sort of) that we have somewhere to say it without being censored or moderated into insignificance, like the days when our only outlet was the “letters to the editor” page of newspapers.
I do not entirely disagree — though I’m less sold on the idea when I look at the comments on something like Do You Believe or God’s Not Dead or Atlas Shrugged. That said, these comments are indeed moderated and entire comments have been deleted on rare occasions, so it’s not quite the wild west free-for-all you may think. It very rarely happens here. The movie section is pretty well behaved and generally reasonably knowledgeable. Someone got deleted once for an incoherent tirade that called me “a cowardly worm” and a “cog in the Marxist machine” and “probably homosexual” — I liked that one so much that I saved it — but it’s the only one I can remember in a long, long time. But I’m not sure that you’ve really gained any ground from the days of a letter to the editor, since those are showcased in print and not buried in a mass of 30 other comments on the internet.
As for elitism in art, I am thinking of actors who testify before Congress (as if a career PRETENDING to be something you are not makes you a witness in anything other than make-believe), pop stars preaching to world leaders (you have great pipes, Bono, so just shut up and sing) or those who gain critical acclaim by dropping crucifixes in piss (how is this different from the Taliban exploding Buddhas or ISIS bulldozing Syria’s oldest ruins?)
Yes, I had a feeling it was going to be something like this. I am not sure to whom you’re refering testifying before congress, but as far as Bono (who I don’t personally much care for in general)…I take a different view. It does not strike me as reasonable that you should be told to “just shut up and sing” for the simple reason you’re famous. Bono is just as much entitled to express his views as you are. And while I thought the “Piss Christ” was fairly dumb and questionable as art (though not necessarily as a gesture), it is completely different from the Taliban and ISIS atrocities you cite. Why? Because it destroyed nothing but a mass-produced plastic crucifix. It didn’t explode or bulldoze anything irreplaceable. That it offended you (I presume) is hardly the same thing. That you’re still worked up about it 28 years after the fact actually suggests the gesture had some power.
Ben Stiller steals the show. Without him, the movie is soap opera schlock (plus some interesting culture critique and satire).
Is it Stiller or is it the character?
Is Stiller in the process of becoming our modern Chaplin/Keaton? Several scenes suggest this.
Not based on anything else I’ve seen with him in it, but then I don’t think of Chaplin and Keaton as interchangeable. Plus, they were making their own films, not appearing in films written and directed by others.
It now seems to be part of the “sophistication” of hip but shallow minds to use this constantly, mainly as an adjective.
Maybe it’s just the circles we travel in, but I think it mostly just reflects the way people talk. In any case, I didn’t especially notice it. I certainly didn’t keep track of it.
Ten years!! What the hell was he doing all that time??
I know someone who’s been working on the same film (not a documentary) since 1990. I long ago gave up expecting to ever see it.
And what could this “doc” have become, even at its best?? Surely not another “My Dinner with Charlie.”
Not sure what My Dinner with Charlie is, but I don’t think it matters what the documentary might or might not be. It’s about as important as what the Nazis are after in Notorious. For that matter, I can’t recall a movie where a film was being made that I could imagine anyone wanting to see.
Isn’t this country now becoming ever fuller of conformist, shallow people who want to become “Artists” instead of doing “an honest day’s work”?
Is it? I guess it depends on the definitions of conformist and shallow, and how one decides who does and doesn’t need quotation marks around artist — and what qualifies as an honest day’s work. I’m no fan of the electronic age — or so-called information age — but a lot of people have, I think, always tried to be artists. Most of them end up selling annuities soon enough without me sitting in judgment on them. That we know about them more now is, yes, a product of the electronic age.
See if you can find “My Dinner with Andre”. I think I DID write “Charlie” instead of “Andre” Congratulations on being too sophisticated to “count” the # of “fucks”. I didn’t either. It just seemed about the right number. I DID mean Stiller and not the character; I was referring to body language, facial looks, etc. I meant Chaplin OR Keaton but didn’t write it clearly. BV
Sounds like Ben Stiller’s characters is trying to make an Adam Curtis documentary in this.
Was anybody else annoyed by Adam Drivers prayer hands?
I hate to say this, but neither of those comments mean anything at all to me.
Was anybody else annoyed by Adam Drivers prayer hands?
I don’t think they’re meant to be endearing.
False gratitude plays heavily in his character, just as much is made of what Josh mistakes for generosity. I think the repeated gesture just reinforces this.
Though I’m not sure Jamie recognizes his base insincerity, there is no point in the film when anything he does isn’t calculated for effect and toward a goal — however vague the goal may seem. That he has no sense that this is phony or wrong changes nothing — it still is both.
Well, I’m not entirely sure how I feel about this one. Make no mistake, I think it’s an excellent, perceptive, and very funny movie, but I can’t really say I like it as much as I think I should, and I’m not exactly sure why. The most obvious reason is probably that I’m trying too hard to compare it to FRANCES HA (a movie I’ve loved since I first watched it and, as I confirmed again last night, adore more and more with each viewing) when the two are really different in terms of tone and intent. I think the larger problem may be that I’m simply too young to really appreciate a lot of the feelings that are explored here, at least not in a way that doesn’t involve abject horror in the face of what feels like an inevitable future. Even at 19, I’m able to see an unsettling amount of myself in Jamie especially (that I’m one of those people who at least prospectively identify as an “artist” doesn’t help matters, nor does the fact that I bought a turntable just a couple weeks ago), but I find his desperation, hunger, and drive to be more or less foreign to my experience. As such, the movie is kind of like a really uncomfortable picture of what’s to come, one that’s so unpromising that I think I ended up actively rebelling against the movie on an emotional level as a kind of self-defense mechanism. That’s probably an odd thing to say, but I also think it’s a testament to the movie’s effectiveness and precision, and it’s likely something that’ll only make the thing seem better and better the further I get from it.
(And for the sake of extremely unimportant consistency, let it be known that I’ve eschewed the moniker of “Mr. Orpheus” and taken up the name I was born with.)
It took me years to learn to deal with the fact that my problem with Women in Love was that the Rupert Birkin (Alan Bates) character was so like me and so embodied things about me that I don’t like — and that it made me really uncomfortable.
I already suspected “Mr. Orpheus” wasn’t your birth name. Plus, I can see behind the curtain here as a moderator, so I already had a clue. Welcome as yourself!
My problem with it was the turn it takes about half way through, but I would still probably give it 3 1/2 to 4 stars.
I guess I’m against the grain on this one. I appreciate all that this movie brought up, and the first half of it was tight as a drum, entertaining and perspicacious. But the second half was forced and sloppy, and nothing satisfying was done with all that was brought up.