The Intern

During a rewatch today, I begrudgingly added a star to my rating for this film. It had a lot of elements I usually can't stand — like overly cute kids, exaggerated naivety, clichés, melodrama, and Anne Hathaway. Speaking of whom, it was actually Hathaway who surprised me this time around. This marks her second role where I didn't feel an overwhelming aversion or annoyance, the first being the White Queen from Alice in Wonderland. Despite the film's flaws, I could sense Nancy Meyers' attempt to craft a genuinely heartwarming movie, and I'll admit, she succeeded to some extent. / Lesson learned: It's never too late. (06/08/2022)

A nice easy watch, but that’s about it. I like Hathaway in pretty much anything, De Niro obviously couldn’t care less about this movie, and the rest of the actors are just there. Rather than a full-fledged movie, it seems to be more of a two-hour promotion video for a non-existent company plus some relationship storylines that are neither here or there. Simply a nice film which I will (probably) forget in a month. (01/06/2016)

This otherwise routine and easygoing confection is greatly diversified by setting the plot in a chaotic corporate environment with apparently no room for feelings and close relationships (yet all you have to do is clean up the boss's desk, and suddenly there is plenty of room :). Hathaway has an excellent role after a long time and handles her energetic workaholic with great aplomb, while De Niro is as praiseworthy as usual, he still has charisma to spare and manages to please even in a similarly boilerplate position of a wise-cracking, good-hearted old man. But most of all, the viewer feels such a sincere and positive chemistry between them that that they will be happy accept the rigidly constructed narrative scheme and, for once, succumb again to the annual obligatory Hollywood romance, which, despite its infantilism, it’s impossible to hate. 65% (01/17/2016)

Yoga, Apple, offices, creatives, cell phones, tablets, Xanax, wheeled chairs, tweets, massages, paperweights, pens, clothes, and much more in this creepy corporate hell that only first-rate rodents must enjoy. Not enough? Well, see how long it is and know that in addition to the shabby tale of how Grandpa Mushroom stunned the FB generation, you'll also get a rousing etude on Nancy Meyers' shitty personal life. I had to make the only comedic moment myself, which was when Robert de Niro watches a scene from Singin' in the Rain on TV with tears in his eyes, I imagined he was watching himself in The Deer Hunter, Raging Bull, or some other film from a time when men feared him and women... also feared him. (02/11/2016)

The Intern is an incredibly cute, almost naive film, undermined by its exorbitant running time and its distortion of reality. There are never enough feel-good films, but in this case the naivety was too glaring at times. Story-wise, it is a predictable but nicely acted film that doesn't surprise, impress or offend. Except for an adventurous "mission" with deleting emails, the film doesn't offer many humorous scenes, which was a pity. Nancy Meyers definitely has more entertaining pieces to her credit. (06/08/2023)