'Blu-ray or Bust’
WHILE WE’RE YOUNG (R, 2014, 97 minutes, A24/SCOTT RUDIN
PRODUCTIONS)
My first official Charles Grodin movie was MIDNIGHT RUN.
Loved the film. The chemistry between Grodin and Robert DeNiro was this
amazing, wonderful slice of movie-making hilarity. His easy delivery, his wit,
that look in his eyes that told you he was letting you, the viewer, in on the
joke. He could be deadpan, sarcastic, flippant, and just plain fun to watch.
Between 1988 and now, Grodin got old.
His role in writer/director Noah Baumbach’s WHILE WE’RE
YOUNG seems almost an insult to the legend of Grodin, who has exactly two funny
lines in the whole film. That is just one of the mysteries at the heart of a
movie that wanted to be the hipster version of THIS IS FORTY, but becomes
something…less, which surprised the hell out of me. One of my favorite films of
2012 was Baumbach’s FRANCES HA, a movie that managed to pull feelings of
happiness and despair right out of you with a seemingly casual smile. YOUNG is
definitely not that film.
YOUNG stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as a slightly older
couple coming to grips with the fact that they are over the age of forty and
childless, while their friends are popping out babies like magic vaginal Pez
dispensers. Enter younger couple Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda
Seyfried), two twenty-somethings with bohemian tendencies who appear to be the
easy answer to all of the growing pains plaguing Josh and Cornelia.
After twenty minutes, I was ready to turn this off. But you
don’t do that to Charles Grodin. So I waited. Don’t get me wrong; there are a
few amusing moments along the way. Cornelia attending hip-hop dance class is
rather amusing, as is one interaction between Grodin and Stiller. But every
scene that Grodin is in, he looks pained. He looks old. He looks as if he has a
whole lot more he wants to say but cannot because this is Baumbach’s show, and
he apparently is a censorious dictator who won’t allow anyone to let his or her
character breathe. This is a big change from the carefree and loose way that
Greta Gerwig carried her way through FRANCES HA, and it is a bit depressing.
This is not to mention the fact that the latter part of the
film switches gears entirely. The story shifts so suddenly that you actually
feel bad for the script. We see a character go from trying to interject some
life into his situation to watching him struggle to show how righteous his
ideals truly are. It pained me to see the actor have to move his character into
full-blown “look at me!” mode at the drop of a hat (literally).
The special features, of which there are six, last for a
total of nine minutes. Seriously. Grodin gets his own one-minute doc, while the
director gives himself a full two minutes. (Insert heavy, disheartened sigh
here) There is nothing revealing at all about the “special” features, and you
get absolutely no insight as to what went into making this boring mess. I
expected to see a documentary that showed how everyone on the set kept from
nodding off during the production…
Perhaps this is a film best appreciated by the
aforementioned hipsters. Or just people that live in New York. As a flailing
forty-something geek myself, I had problems connecting with this film on any
level. If I were more of a Woody Allen fan, maybe it would have resonated more.
But it didn’t. It just pissed me off by including a comedy legend in a role
that should have been for…say…anyone that is naturally un-funny. Anyone but
Grodin.
Film Grade: D
Special Features: F
Blu-ray Necessary: Not for any reason at all
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