The Intern

A typically breezy and entertaining Nancy Meyers comedy, The Intern follows 70-year-old retiree Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) as he successfully applies for an internship placement at a hip online fashion site – with the movie detailing his ongoing exploits within the company as well as his relationship with head honcho Jules (Anne Hathaway). There’s little doubt that Meyers does a superb job of immediately luring the viewer into the erratically-paced proceedings, as the filmmaker establishes De Niro’s thoroughly sympathetic character right off the bat and effectively develops the (admittedly idealized) world around him. (It doesn’t hurt that Meyers has peppered the supporting cast with a variety of affable performers, including Anders Holm, Rene Russo, and Zack Pearlman.) It’s ultimately clear that The Intern is at its best when focused on the tremendously appealing (and appropriately platonic) relationship that forms between De Niro and Hathaway’s respective characters, as Meyers, in predictable fashion, bogs the proceedings down with needless subplots that ultimately push the running time to an entirely inappropriate 121 minutes. (There is, for example, an almost astonishingly irrelevant storyline involving a mistaken email sent to Jules’ mother.) Nevertheless, The Intern is, for the most part, an absolutely delightful comedy/drama that’s been refreshingly geared towards adults – with the movie’s few faults rendered moot by an otherwise compulsively watchable atmosphere.

*** out of ****