A lot of people have taken a love them or hate them approach to Noah Baumbach’s movies, but often it feels to me like these people didn’t watch enough of the guy’s stuff before making such an extreme judgment. It’s true that his movies can get a bit rough to watch, seeing as they feature realist characters who often have bleak and cynical points of view that make them difficult to root for, but they also unapologetically speak to truth, and there’s only been one or two of them that actually went too far in the direction of being an unpleasant experience. Plus, his most recent film, Frances Ha, took a big step toward letting a little bit of hope break through all of that doom and gloom, and this new movie, While We’re Young, keeps that energy going, even if it isn’t quite as light. What this one does is deal with the struggle of losing the hope and energy that comes from youth once you’re older and wiser and you’ve had reality creep into your dreams a few too many times. It’s the happy medium between his bleaker stuff like Margot at the Wedding and Frances.
While We’re Young’s story sees Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts playing a married couple who find their routine and stagnant lives suddenly blossoming with passion and energy after they befriend a much younger married couple played by Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried. You see, Stiller’s character is a once promising but currently floundering documentary filmmaker, and Driver’s is an ambitious amateur looking to get into the game. What starts off as a professional mentor relationship between the two men quickly turns into a friendly relationship where the younger couple begins to mentor the older in how to embrace the sort of laissez-faire, hipster lifestyle that’s currently thriving in places like Brooklyn—so there we have a premise ridiculous enough to make for a movie, old people becoming hipsters. Stiller even starts to wear a fedora as an affectation once his character becomes enamored with being hip and feeling young. Yeah, this movie turns it up all the way to fedora.
Baumbach’s films are always packed full of interesting ideas, well-realized characters, and tons of dark humor, so it’s no surprise that While We’re Young is good, but what might make it notable next to his other movies is that the cast he’s working with this time is really talented, down to the last person. Not that he doesn’t always work with great actors, but man this cast is deep with talent. They’re all so charming and likable and great at what they do that it’s just fun spending time with them, whether you’re in the beginning portion of the film where the tone is light and we’re watching Watts and Stiller fall in love with their newfound lifestyle, or whether it’s later in the film where the illusion of youthful exceptionalism has faded away and drama creeps into the interpersonal relationships.
Watts has never been anything less than amazing in anything she’s ever been in, so it’s no shock that she’s great with both the comedy and the drama in this movie, and is able to find interesting things for her character to do, even as Stiller’s gets the bulk of the attention. Adam Driver has maybe the hottest young career in Hollywood, and he’s got a reputation for doing cutting edge work, so it’s also no surprise that he’s a perfect fit at playing a pretentious but nonetheless charismatic character who’s really hard to like but nonetheless very difficult to not be amused by. What’s feels really nice is seeing how good Stiller and Seyfried are here though.
While Stiller is a strong actor who has a well-honed sense of comedic timing, he stars in so many bland, homogenized blockbusters these days that it’s been too easy for people to forget that he used to be a really exciting actor who was considered something of a hip, counterculture figure back in the early 90s. Whenever he’s teamed up with a great filmmaker and interesting material he always does a great job though, so this movie should serve as a reminder to some people that, once upon a time, one could be a fan of Ben Stiller and still be considered as being pretty with it. Seyfried is another story. She’s an actor who’s always shown a lot of potential, but who never quite lives up to it because she’s always making bad movies with mediocre talents. Here it’s very refreshing to see her paired with other actors who can command the screen just as much as she does and a filmmaker who can hammer out a solid script. Out of the main foursome she gets the least interesting stuff to do, but at least she looks engaged. Filmmakers, let’s come up with something better for this girl to do before she becomes another victim of a lack of interesting female roles like the Rachel McAdamses before her. Also, in addition to the main foursome, Charles Grodin shows up in a few scenes here, and it just feels right to see him back up on the big screen doing his thing again. He still plays weary like none other.
The good things about While We’re Young don’t just stop with the crafting and the acting either, as it’s also so full of rich thematics that it becomes the sort of “important” movie that will keep you rolling it over and over in your mind long after you’re done watching it. A critique of hipster culture from a more mature perspective sounds like it could be too current or too fleeting to resonate, but this movie is able to comment on modern youth culture in a way that’s so grounded in character that it doesn’t paint itself into the corner of being too topical to universally resonate. This movie manages to plumb a depth of concerns very relevant to the struggles of modern life, all while remaining entertaining and comedic. It explores the difference in mindset between this new generation that’s coming up—their aloofness and entitlement and their unwavering confidence in themselves, despite their inexperience in actually accomplishing anything—and the older, more terrified generation who they are replacing. And it also has something to say about what wisdom really is and where it actually comes from. Just getting older and having experiences isn’t enough. We also have to process those experiences and allow the lessons that they teach us to change our behavior. If we’re not always modifying our behavior, then how could we be getting any closer to a place of wisdom? There’s a line that needs to be walked between the blind optimism of youth and the shutdown defeatism of experience, and While We’re Young puts you right on it.
