No.285 : While We’re Young (2014)

While We're Young at the IMDb

This film of middle age yuppie angst opens with a screaming baby - never a good start. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play a childless couple who, after holding their friend’s baby, decide that parenthood is not for them. They had tried and failed to conceive before and are now settled into their comfortable and carefree lives.

Ben is a documentary filmmaker, but his work can only be found on eBay and his latest feature has been in production for eight years. He does teach a class in film making, and it’s here that he meets Kylo Ren, a young hipster film maker who eulogises over Ben’s questionable movie career.

Ben likes the fawning and soon the pair become friends, with Kylo’s wife, her off ‘Mamma Mia’, joining them for double dates. The older couple envy the free spirited youths and soon start to adopt parts of their lifestyles such as wearing silly hats and doing hip-hop aerobics. Ben and Kylo start to help each other on their projects and Ben is jealous when Kylo makes and edits a hit film is a few days, as his 8 hour epic is boring as hell and nowhere near finished.

Ben’s initial annoyance soon blooms into full blown irritation as he discovers that Kylo’s film may not have been as honest as he made out. Also, is Ben’s father in law, a celebrated documentary film maker, real reason that Kylo zeroed in on Ben? And will illicit kiss at a shaman dope session also signal problems for the forty something couple?

The older couple become alienated from their peer group of friends and with a gala celebration of the father in laws work due, will Ben expose the dodgy practices used by Kylo and are they really all that important? Will children come back into the equation or will they accept what they have?

Written and directed by Noah Baumbach this film pretty much delivered what I was expecting. Lots of middle-aged angst and an examination of relationships set against a backdrop of coffee bars and sunglasses. It was OK though.

I liked the seduction of Ben as he was enticed into the hipster lifestyle. We all knew Kylo was a bad lot from the start when he kept leaving Ben to pay the bill, but Ben was blinded by the praise and energy of his younger rival. It was good that Ben started to see though the façade and it was a clever twist when his big exposure of his rival was met with a resounding ‘so what?’ from all in attendance.

Ben’s slavish devotion to the truth at all costs lost him sight of what really mattered - the truth of the story being told. It was questionable that Kylo set up his story, and the detection angle for Ben was decent, but at the end of the day people need to be entertained and if a narrative shortcut can lose several hours of Turkish politics, then we're all for it.

The performances from the two male leads were good with the two females not getting much to do. The whole enterprise was somewhat slight and I don't doubt that this one will fade quickly from the memory, but it was an enjoyable slice of life with some interesting questions asked, if not fully answered.

Best Bit : Ben's Film Gets the Critique it Deserves   16/23

No. 132 : We Don’t Live Here Anymore (2004)

We Don't Live Here Anymore at the IMDb

It was only when I checked the IMDb page for this film that I realised that I’d seen it before. A further check of my records revealed I saw it at Cineworld on22nd June 2005 and awarded it a decent 7/10. On looking back that score may have been generous as I saw it in a double bill with Paris Hilton starrer ‘House of Wax’, but given it has been excised from my memory can’t bode too well for the rewatching.

I actually quite enjoyed it the second time around but beware it involves relationships so don’t watch it with a partner if you want to avoid an earnest discussion afterwards. The film involves the relationships and inter relationships between two couples. Peter Krause (Nate out of ‘Six Feet Under’) is married to Naomi Watts and works as a teacher and an aspiring writer. His wife is having a secret affair with her husband’s best friend, Mark Ruffalo.

Ruffalo is having a career break but is forced back to work by his wife’s love of lobster and lazing around a lot. Money is a bit tight and the cause of arguments and means he has to do his secret shagging on a rug in the woods. He thinks his wife is a bit lazy around the house and a bit too fond of the booze. The affair soon starts to expand the cracks in the already shaky relationships and Dern reveals that Nate had made a pass at her during a dinner party.

With everyone very educated and civilised there is no question of a punch up and the two men seem to have an unspoken agreement to let the other pump his wife. Clearly this can’t go on and after a few emotional blow outs things start to fall apart. Who will stay with who and for what reason?

That quick summary makes the film sound very earnest and talk heavy and that’s because it is. You do get four solid performances for your money but you will have to decide whether four good looking yuppies shagging around and shouting a lot is your idea of a fun night in. I know there’s a lot of subtext about the human condition and how our consumer lead lifestyle has lead to people becoming emotional cripples but would one decent car chase have hurt?

It’s hard to have much sympathy for any of them, apart from maybe the kids who have to put up with a lot of yelling and pee soaked beds. Of the four Dern attracts most of our goodwill early on as she’s the only one happy with her lot, but it isn’t long before she’s going for it like the best of them. Must be something in the water.

The relationship between the two men seemed a bit strange with their respective affairs not really bothering them at all. It may be that they’d see the hypocrisy in such a stance but that wouldn’t really ring true. Perhaps they love each other more than their naggy wives, which I could understand. Although there is a lot of sex going on it is all of that modest variety which given the loose morals on show seems a bit strange. There is some coarse language bandied about and at times it’s like a doubled up, poor man’s ‘Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?’. I like most of the talent on show but the emotionally draining script and depressing outlook means this is one where a third visit won’t be happening. Well maybe next year when I’ll have forgotten it all again.

Best Bit : If you go down to the woods today
‘W’ Rating : 12/23