Oops, careful there Nancy, your conservatism is showing!
Nancy Meyers’ trademark obsession with the love-shaped chasm in the lives of privileged professional women is again on full display in The Intern, a comedy that doth clumsily and unconvincingly protest its feminist politics.
Anne Hathaway stars as Jules, a fashion entrepreneur whose rapid success is taking its toll, both at work and at home. She’s under threat of losing control to a senior male CEO, while her husband is feeling increasingly emasculated by his stay-at-home Dad status (a plotline that makes no sense given the couple’s ostentatious wealth and their child’s age – get childcare and stop whining).
Enter Ben (Robert DeNiro), a bored septuagenarian who joins Jules’ company under a senior intern program. And because behind every successful woman is a paternal father figure unironically doling out sage advice about not letting men rule her life all while scrutinising her every move, this intergenerational duo become the best of friends.
Hathaway and DeNiro do lovely work, their individual sensitivities and affectionate chemistry bringing tenderness and inner conflict to the screen. This is in spite of the forced, self-contradicting script, which stumbles over itself in mourning the loss of “real” masculinity, constantly pitches women against each other, and despite its assertions that work/life balance questions are old-fashioned, includes interactions like “We don’t need to talk about work.” “Fine, what else would you like to talk about?” “Marriage?”
There are moments of warmth and comedy in the film – though many are unintentional. Ben’s love interest, for example, is played by fellow “oldie-but-goodie” Rene Russo – an actress 12 years younger than DeNiro. Even in pseudo-feminist flicks, 60 will always be the new 70 for women in Hollywood.