Review: While We're Young

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★★

Very few filmmakers are able to correctly capture the essence of living in modern Middle America. Noah Baumbach is one of those filmmakers. And while the main characters of his latest feature “While We’re Young” are living comfortably well in New York City, they still face all the same issue everyone of us – rich and poor – must face: getting older.

Ben Stiller stars as Josh, a middle-aged documentary filmmaker married without children to Cornelia (Naomi Watts). Despite not having any kids, Josh and Cornelia have fallen into a slump of only going to one event whenever they have a night out and a general lack of spontaneity. Josh has taken almost 10 years to complete his latest movie and it’s still not done. But all this changes when Josh meets a young couple while giving a less-than-stellar lecture about film at one of the local universities. Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried) are a couple of hipsters living life as simple – or maybe as ironic – as possible. Jamie is a wannabe filmmaker while Darby makes her own ice cream. In a social setting, they’d rather just not know the answer to a question that comes up during conversation rather than Google the answer on their phone.

Suddenly, Josh and Cornelia are energized hanging around these two. They see how much fun life can be when you just live life without worrying about a need to find success. Of course, everyone does have desires in life, and Jamie’s desire is to be a documentarian much like Josh, and even more so like Josh’s legendary documentarian father-in-law Leslie (Charles Grodin). Jamie wants Josh’s help putting together a very ill-conceived idea for a film. Josh has never been a great collaborator before, but he’s willing to give it shot for once in his life. For the first time in a long time, Josh feels young and untouchable again.

Of course, not everyone in Josh and Cornelia’s life sees their new found youthfulness as attractive. Longtime friends and first time parents Marina (Maria Dizzia) and Fletcher (Adam Horovitz aka Ad-Rock of Beastie Boys fame) don’t understand this newfound interest in people in their early-to-mid twenties. Why can’t Josh and Cornelia just have a kid and act their age? Because walking the abandoned tracks of a subway line for no purpose whatsoever is much more fun.

“While We’re Young” is an honest look at the lives people of two different generations are living now. There may be a certain level of jealousy from each group toward the other, but none of it should be detrimental. The film chooses to not explore the realities of getting older, but rather the purpose of evaluating where you are in your life every now and then.

Baumbach sets up his story perfectly in the beginning, and keeps his short and fast paced script on theme for the remainder of the film. We should come to expect no less from him at this stage in his career. He continues to turn out well-written films time and time again. It would also appear that “While We’re Young” could be slightly autobiographical for him to an extent. After all, he always surrounds himself with talent younger than he is, like the impeccable Greta Gerwig in his 2013 feature “Frances Ha.” She’s absent in this film, but he makes do without her.

Here, Baumbach casts exceptional younger talent in Driver and Seyfried and pairs them with veterans like Watts and Stiller. (I’ll still refer to Seyfried as “young talent” despite her being in mega productions for over a decade now.) Stiller especially shines here. He turned in one of the best performances of his career with another Baumbach film “Greenberg” but tops that here. The scenes and moments that Driver and Stiller share are exceptional, especially in moments where Stiller provides terrific reaction to the interesting situations he finds himself in with his younger counterpart.

“While We’re Young” has a moving message, but it’s cleverly buried inside a story that is filled with so much genuine humor that it never feels forced. And of course Baumbach’s brilliance is on full display as usual. It’s a film that moves along quick, complete with characters full of empathy. Each viewer should find something familiar in at least one of the main roles. It’s a very enjoyable film and is truly funny. It may lack the masterful stroke as some of Baumbach’s previous work (see “Frances Ha”) but it’s still a very smart comedy about people trying to live their lives in the face of growing old. We may grow older everyday, but that doesn’t mean we don’t have to slow down our lives just because of an arbitrary number known as age.

Review: The Secret Life of Walter Mitty

by Trevor Kirkendall

★★½

Get going on your adventure, Walter Mitty!

“The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” follows none other than Walter Mitty (Ben Stiller). Walter works for Life Magazine as a photo processor. He’s been there for 16 years and does his job well. He’s also a bit of a dreamer. Every now and then, he’ll zone out and imagine some very far-fetched scenario that features himself as the hero of the day. Most of his daydreams center on a co-worker he’s never spoken with, Cheryl Melhoff (Kristen Wiig). He’s overheared that she’s joined eHarmony so Walter joins too, but his profile isn’t compatible with hers which means he can’t “wink” at her. That’s a problem best handled by eHarmony’s support line manned by Todd Maher (Patton Oswalt) who wants to help Walter’s profile look more appealing.

Walter is also pretty close with his mom Edna (Shirley MacLaine) and his sister Odessa (Kathryn Hahn). Edna’s moving into a new apartment and Walter is assisting her with the move. She’s saved all sorts of stuff from Walter’s past including a little travel journal his father gave him shortly before he passed away. But Walter has never traveled, so it’s very empty.

At work, Life Magazine is about to shut down and move to online subscriptions only. This transition is being overseen by Ted Hendricks (Adam Scott) who doesn’t really care for Walter or his frequent daydreams in the middle of conversations. Walter receives a package from Sean O’Connell (Sean Penn), a famous photographer who deals exclusively with Walter even though they’ve never met in person. Sean tells him that one of the negatives is the best picture he’s ever done and it should be the final cover of the magazine. He even telegrams Ted and tells him the same thing. The only problem is the negative is missing. Walter enlists the help of Cheryl to help track Sean down. Using clues from the other negatives, they figure he’s in Greenland. At Cheryl’s insistence, Walter just hops on a plane and goes out looking for Sean and retrieve the negative for the final Life cover. Walter’s only ever dreamed of adventure, but now he’s about to embark on one.

Blank stares are all Stiller's got for this character

Ben Stiller proves he’s proficient in the technical aspects of filmmaking with “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty.” There are many beautiful moments in this film, but all the flash and glamour of the images on the screen can’t make up for its lack of script. Written by Steve Conrad (“The Pursuit of Happyness”), the film moves along at a much too leisurely pace. By the time Walter leaves New York to go about his adventure, the film had already lost me.

The three-act structure is on full display here: before the adventure, the adventure, after the adventure. But the first act isn’t supposed to drag on for a seemingly endless amount of time, which is what happens here. And the subplots meant to fill time until Walter leaves aren’t all that interesting. I never really felt fully invested in these characters. They all served their purposes in a typical Hollywood movie cliché kind of way. You want Walter to end up with Cheryl because it’s established that she’s the object of his affection. You want Walter to stand up to and eventually one-up Ted because he’s a snarky, sarcastic antagonist. These are all overdone character clichés in any movie and they’re easily identifiable here. But there’s nothing in the script or the performances make us want to see things turn out well for Walter in the end. The film tells us Walter is our guy, and by default we accept that.

Stiller disappoints in this mostly dramatic role. We’ve seen him play the same character too many times in too many other movies, too often with Owen Wilson. But Walter Mitty is not the type of character we’re used to seeing from Stiller. It’s a dramatic role for once and a chance for Stiller to show that side of his acting abilities. But he plays the role flat with little emotion. His goofy little daydream sequences do nothing to enhance his character, but rather remind us of the comedic roles that make up so much of Stiller’s career. I really did want to connect with him, but he gives very little to work with.

But where Stiller does succeed to a degree is behind the camera. He may not have put too much time and attention into finding the right performances for his cast – and especially himself – but “Walter Mitty” is a technical achievement above all else. It’s beautifully shot by Stuart Dryburgh (most famous for his photography for “The Piano”). The film takes place in several different locations we don’t normally see in films (although Iceland is becoming a favorite amongst the studios recently). The wide sweeping shots of the Icelandic landscape and the Himalayas in Afghanistan (I don’t think they actually filmed there) all look great, worthy of any kind of National Geographic documentary. CGI is heavily used, but Stiller keeps a lid on it. He uses it only to enhance the scene and the story, rather than drown us in an unnecessary sea of special effects like so many other big budget films. He could have easily done that here, but Stiller opted for a more realistic look. His use of music is well done, and he’s on the same page with his long time film editor Greg Hayden. This is a very technically sound production and it’s a joy to look at on the screen.

But I never felt Stiller really took “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” to all the emotional levels it was capable of achieving. Yes it’s pretty to look at, but there’s never a true connection to story or the characters. This never allows a genuine connection to be made between audience and film. I might be in the minority on this one considering the warm round of applause the film received at my screening. If you’re expecting this wonderful film about the triumph of the human emotion over adversity, this isn’t it but it definitely had that potential.