movie reviews the intern

There’s something really soothing about a Nancy Meyers movie. Everything looks so good ; both polished and cozy. It’s not just the real estate porn, which had its most blatant manifestation in the Hamptons beach house featured in Meyers’ ageism-juggling 2003 rom-com “Something’s Gotta Give.” It’s also the furnishings, like the rotating tie rack in the bedroom of the brownstone owned by Robert De Niro ’s retired businessman in her latest, “The Intern.” It’s how all the surfaces gleam: “The Intern” was shot at locations mostly within walking distance of where I actually live, and while it is a very blessed part of Brooklyn, its windows are not normally quite as uniformly shiny as those of the buildings seen here.

And often this soothing quality serves as a distraction from how inane and uncomfortable a movie such as “Something’s Gotta Give” can be. But here’s the thing: “The Intern,” while having its share of silly moments, is the most genuinely enjoyable and likable movie that Meyers—a longtime writer and producer before taking up directing—has put her name to since, oh, I don’t know, 1984’s “ Irreconcilable Differences .”

De Niro has the title role here, as he did in “ Taxi Driver ” and “ Raging Bull ” and even “ The King of Comedy .” His character’s name is Ben Whittaker, and he’s a retired, well-off widower in Brooklyn who’s bored with the relative inactivity of his current, pleasant mode of living. So he applies for a position in a “Senior Intern Program” at an e-commerce concern called “About The Fit,” and winds up reporting to its founder, Jules, an exemplary, for Meyers, 21 st Century entrepreneur type; not too far beneath her sunny exterior—she IS played by Anne Hathaway , after all—is a highly driven and possibly blinkered go-getter.

De Niro’s character here is one that he pretty much never played during what many consider his acting heyday: a decent, straightforward, non-neurotic regular guy who’s gotten somewhere good in life. And in this movie, he plays it rather well. There’s something slightly Woody Allenesque about his opening scene, in which he constructs a job-application video. His role calls for him to do a certain amount of mugging as he interacts with younger colleagues and learns about the Weird Things These Kids Today Do With Their Relationships And The Internet and such. Thankfully, the movie doesn’t dwell on senior-citizen bemusement with the Digital Age all too much; one of the points of De Niro’s character is that he’s alert and competent and wants to be of service. He has a hard time being of service to Jules, whose relentless focus makes her immediately distrustful of anyone who has an insight as to how she conceives and runs her business. And the movie is rather good at the details of that business, and the way that Jules’ vision for it defines its practical particulars.

But Ben manages to get into Jules’ good graces partly via patriarchal stealth, as when he confronts Jules’ driver after seeing him take a few nips out of a paper bag right before the soon-to-be-ex-employee is supposed to take her to a meeting in Manhattan. Ben’s internship happens to coincide with a challenging period in the growth of Jules’ company; Jules’ aide-de-camp Cameron (a very understated Andrew Rannells ) brings her the unusual news that the company’s investors, while delighted with its success, would like to bring an outside CEO to the company. Jules dutifully interviews prospects even as she’s dizzied by the idea that she could be effectively ousted from her own creation. In the meantime, her home life—she has a too-milquetoasty-to-be-a-bro-dad husband ( Anders Holm ) and a predictably delightful and adorable young daughter (JoJo Kushner)—is taking the standard can-a-career-woman-have-it-all hits. And at least one hit that’s not so standard, or maybe I should say, not so easy to stand.

Through all of this Ben maintains a careful, empathetic watch—early in their relationship, Jules pinpoints her discomfort with him as arising because he’s too “observant”—and when he steps in to offer help, he does so in a discreetly chivalrous way that actually runs counter to any “here comes daddy to save the day” expectations. Ben, as it happens, genuinely admires Jules—looks up to her, you might say—and when he does bring his experience as a businessman to bear on Jules’ own enterprise, it’s in the spirit of sharing knowledge rather than that of correction. When push comes to shove, Ben offers Jules the assurance that the thing to do is be tough and go after what you want.

The adages of “The Intern” are delivered in a comedy package that, for the most part, is sane, sweet, and smart, and a lot of the time, actually funny. A budding romance between Ben and the company’s in-house masseuse ( Rene Russo ) is fodder for two groan-inducing visual gags. But a silly set piece in which Ben enlists some of the younger goofballs of About The Fit on a housebreaking mission, replete with latter-day “Ocean’s Eleven” references, is actually a tolerable bit of rompage. And everyone in the cast, including Hathaway, who, for the record, I have never not liked, is extremely appealing. “What have you done with my husband?” my wife asked me the other night when I came home and told her I’d had a genuinely good time watching a Nancy Meyers movie. What could I say? You’re never too old to keep an open mind.

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

Adam DeVine as Jason
Anders Holm as Matt
Robert De Niro as Ben Whittaker
Rene Russo as Fiona
Anne Hathaway as Jules Ostin
Nancy Meyers

Director of Photography

Stephen Goldblatt

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‘the intern’: film review.

Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro star in a workplace comedy directed by mainstream female auteur Nancy Meyers.

By Stephen Farber

Stephen Farber

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Writer-director Nancy Meyers has scored a number of commercial successes (including It’s Complicated and Something’s Gotta Give ) by going against the grain and making movies centered on women and aimed at older audiences. These films have not always fared as well with critics as they have with audiences, and you can expect the same divided response to her latest feel-good comedy, The Intern . Box office should be healthy, even though the movie offers more frustrations than rewards to discerning viewers of any age or gender.

On the plus side, the movie benefits from the casting of Robert De Niro and especially Anne Hathaway . And the premise has possibilities. Hathaway plays Jules Ostin , a high-powered executive at a new fashion website, and De Niro is Ben, a senior intern hired to work for her after he rejects the idea of retirement. Fortunately, there is no hint of romance between the two characters; it’s more of a friendship and professional relationship, which turns out to benefit both of them.

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Review: In ‘The Intern,’ She’s the Boss, but He’s the Star

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By Manohla Dargis

Sept. 24, 2015

The director Nancy Meyers doesn’t just make movies, she makes the kind of lifestyle fantasies you sink into like eiderdown. Her movies are frothy, playful, homogeneous, routinely maddening and generally pretty irresistible even when they’re not all that good. Her most notable visual signature is the immaculate, luxuriously appointed interiors she’s known to fuss over personally — they inevitably feature throw pillows that look as if they’ve been arranged with a measuring tape. These interiors are fetishized by moviegoers and Architectural Digest alike, ready-made for Pinterest and comment threads peppered with questions like, “Where do I get that hat?”

In her latest, Robert De Niro plays Ben Whittaker, a 70-year-old widower who shakes up his life when he becomes an intern at a web start-up where he soon becomes an office mascot and geezer Tinker Bell. Mostly, though, Ben is the benign face of patriarchy, a gentler, kinder father figure who comes equipped with a laundered handkerchief and the wisdom of the elders. He shares both with his new boss, Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), the founder of an online clothing site that has rocketed from zero to zillions in record time. She runs her company with a steely grip and a forced smile in a refurbished Brooklyn warehouse the size of Grand Central Terminal. She’s a success and possibly an obsessive-compulsive (she all but showers in hand sanitizer), but she’s also floundering, one crisis at a time.

Movie Review: ‘The Intern’

The times critic manohla dargis reviews “the intern.”.

Jules’s problem is as familiar as the last headline that recycled the plagues of career women who want it all, apparently can’t have it all and are unsure if they want any of it in the first place. “What do women want,” Forbes asked a few years ago, echoing (still!) Dr. Freud. Among the suggestions: a little sadomasochistic me time à la “Fifty Shades of Grey.” For her part, Jules mostly wants someone to tidy up a cluttered table that sits like a reproach in the middle of the immaculate office and that for some reason she won’t or can’t tell someone to clean. Structurally, the messy table is a means for Ben, the ultimate can-do type whom Jules doesn’t want to engage, to at last catch her attention. And he does just that when he clears it, inaugurating a work relationship that soon turns into a friendship.

The table is a silly, lazy screenwriting contrivance, and it says more about Ms. Meyers’s conflicted ideas about powerful women than it conveys anything interesting about Jules. A successful Hollywood director like Ms. Meyers, for starters, would never have gotten this far and with a number of hits to her name if she had been afraid of telling other people what to do. But Ms. Meyers has some distinct ideas about women, work and power, and so she piles on the issues: Jules is chronically late to meetings, among other sins, although that seems to be because she likes riding slowly through the office on her bicycle. The bike suggests that she’s a nonconformist, although the neat rows of her pretty, young, overwhelmingly white employees doing something in front of their computers suggest otherwise.

Ben serves as a kind of Mr. Fix-It, who, with quiet confidence, paternal competence and a driver’s license, helps Jules get on track at work and home in the way that none of the man-children in her life can. Ms. Meyers has clearly been binging on Judd Apatow comedies, and she stacks her movie with assorted bromantic schlumps (including a troika that functions like a farm team version of Seth Rogen, Jonah Hill and Michael Cera), whose sloppy clothes and facial hair emblematize not only their arrested development but also a crisis in masculinity. That guys like these help run the world (and the entertainment business) without hauling around a leather briefcase is immaterial to Ms. Meyers, presumably because it would get in the way of her new take on the rescue narrative.

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Film Review: ‘The Intern’

Nancy Meyers' smug workplace fable needs every ounce of Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro's combined star quality.

By Guy Lodge

Film Critic

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'The Intern' Review: Hathaway and De Niro Sell a Smarmy Office Fable

Behind at least one successful woman stands an older, wiser man. That, at least, is the chief takeaway from “ The Intern ,” a perky generation-gap fable that sneaks some surprisingly conservative gender politics into its stainless new world of online startups and amply product-placed Macbooks. Starring Robert De Niro as the tirelessly benevolent retiree who becomes fashion entrepreneur Anne Hathaway ‘s unlikely guide to work-life equilibrium, this is smooth white-linen entertainment, unmistakably of a piece with the plush oeuvre of writer-director Nancy Meyers . Yet it takes all the leads’ considerable combined charm to forestall the aftertaste of the pic’s smug life lessons and near-comically blinkered worldview. Supplanting the romantic fizz of “It’s Complicated” and “Something’s Gotta Give” with scarf-deep social engagement may cost Meyers’ latest a little at the box office, but this “Intern” will still be reasonably well-paid by an under-served date-night crowd.

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“Love and work, work and love, that’s all there is,” intones 70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker (De Niro) in the film’s opening voiceover — vaguely quoting Freud, but pinpointing the extended concerns of Meyers’ screenplay with ruthless accuracy. (An hour later, one character will suggest changing the subject in a work-focused conversation. “Marriage?” another eagerly suggests. These are the options.) Marital stability and professional achievement are the two objectives by which “The Intern” defines its characters and narrative alike, at the expense of any deeper personal or cultural interests; when Ben tells a date that he can summarize himself in 10 seconds, the script gives us little reason to doubt him.

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For Hathaway’s heavily burdened career woman Jules Ostin, on the other hand, even 10 seconds of self-description is time she can ill afford to spare. The founder and president of About the Fit, a Brooklyn-based online couture retailer in the mold of Net-a-Porter, she’s a Type A micromanager who has trouble leaving even customer service calls in the hands of her eminently capable employees. When her patient deputy (Andrew Rannells) announces that she’s to be assigned an assistant via the company’s newly-introduced senior intern program, she takes it as a personal affront.

Enter Ben, whose affability and helpfulness are as consistent as the square charcoal business suits he wears every day. After trying out a host of hobbies and adult education courses to stave off the loneliness of spouseless retirement, the former telephone-directory manufacturer (a pointedly analog career path) has come back around to the workplace: Tai chi classes are all very well, but can’t verily be classified as either work or love. Hoping for a new lease on life from the fiercely young, hip surrounds of About the Fit, he arrives with rolled-up sleeves and a can-do attitude — only to be brusquely ignored by Jules, more frazzled than ever following pressure from investors to hire a senior male CEO for the company.

By this point, it can’t have escaped viewers’ attention that Meyers has fashioned “The Intern” as something of a generational backflip on “The Devil Wears Prada,” with the cannily cast Hathaway having graduated to the role of corporate fashion dragon. (She’s even permitted, in a witty touch, to toss her jacket at Ben in the blasé manner of Meryl Streep’s Miranda Priestley.) The difference, of course, is that Jules hasn’t quite Priestley’s time-hardened unflappability, while De Niro is no hapless naif a la Andie Sachs: The balance of authority between them is awkward from the get-go, as Jules complains that her well-seasoned intern is “too observant.”

The turning point, as in “Prada,” is when home-work boundaries are crossed. Ben steps in for Jules’ personal chauffeur (her on-trend preference for cycling, cited in introductory scenes, is inexplicably forgotten), getting to know her young daughter Paige (JoJo Kushner) and affable stay-at-home husband Matt (deftly played by Anders Holm) in the process. Yet as Jules’ marriage, rather than any workplace dilemmas, becomes the focus of the drama, “The Intern’s” superficially 21st-century outlook on age and gender takes on a more regressively paternalistic slant. Jules asserts that she can have it all, but she requires an awful lot of mentoring from Ben — whose professional and marital history is, at least as he tells it, wholly unblemished — to get to that point. There’s not a lot of inter-generational exchange here, as Ben arrives in the narrative with little to learn; beyond helping him set up a Facebook page, Jules doesn’t get to impart much perspective of her own.

Before long, Ben’s even monitoring her drinking with raised eyebrows: She may come to call him her “best friend” (largely because there’s scant evidence of any others), but the subtext is that it’s hard for a woman in her position to find support among her own. Certainly, the film’s other female characters do little for its feminist credentials: Jules’ fellow kindergarten moms are characterized as spiteful housewives, while her mother (heard, never seen) is a passive-aggressive needler. The great Celia Weston is egregiously wasted as a dippy elder intern, while as the frisky office masseuse — this is a Nancy Meyers film, after all — who embarks on a staid courtship with Ben, fellow “oldie-but-goodie” Rene Russo has little to do but twinkle kindly from the sidelines. (She’s over a decade younger than De Niro, but “oldie” status comes early in this world.)

If older women get short shrift, then, their male counterparts are praised to the skies. Hathaway even gets to deliver a wince-worthy sermon to Jules’ cardigan-wearing twentysomething male employees — themselves equally in thrall to Ben — bemoaning the decline of masculinity and decorum in modern men. Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford (not to mention, by implication, De Niro himself), by contrast, are held up as superior role models of “cool.” This is pretty retrograde stuff, and hardly plausible coming from Jules given her own husband’s enlightened decision to give up his career for hers — not exactly a maneuver from the Jack Nicholson playbook.

At least there’s a genuine crackle of chemistry between Hathaway and De Niro to sell us on their characters’ mutual appreciation: Both actors can perform this kind of personality-led comedy on cue, but also tease out unscripted hints of inner conflict when so inclined. Hathaway does particularly well in a role that frequently draws direct attention to its own unlikeability: Both the steelier and more genial sides of the actress’s signature class-captain charisma play persuasively into her business persona.

Meyers’ detractors often cite her films’ narrow focus on a moneyed sliver of society, and true to form, the story world in “The Intern” could hardly be more homogeneous: For a film set predominantly in Brooklyn, the racial uniformity of the ensemble is regrettably striking. (Ben admits early on that he took Mandarin classes for a stretch; in Meyers’ vision of the Big Apple, it’s hard to imagine what use he might have for them.) Though the pic is brightly shot by Stephen Goldblatt and scored with chipper deodorant-ad zeal by Theodore Shapiro, it’s Kristi Zea’s impeccable production design that again proves the most defining technical element of Meyers’ filmmaking. From the sharp white corners of About the Fit’s warehouse-conversion offices to the ivory calico textures of Jules’ gorgeously refurbished brownstone, all “The Intern’s” interiors radiate a most exclusive kind of expense.

Reviewed at Warner Bros. screening room, London, Sept. 15, 2015. MPAA Rating: PG-13. Running time: 121 MIN.

Production: A Warner Bros. Pictures presentation of a Waverly Films production. Produced by Nancy Meyers, Suzanne Farwell. Executive producer, Celia Costas. Co-producers, Jeffrey J.P. Wetzel, Deb Dyer.
Crew: Directed, written by Nancy Meyers. Camera (color, Arri Alexa HD), Stephen Goldblatt; editor, Robert Leighton; music, Theodore Shapiro; music supervisors, Randall Poster, George Drakoulias; production designer, Kristi Zea; art director, Doug Huszti; set decorator, Susan Bode-Tyson; costume designers, Jacqueline Oknaian, Aude Bronson-Howard; sound (Dolby Digital), Danny Michael; supervising sound editors, Dennis Drummond, Sean Massey; re-recording mixers, Greg Orloff, Tateum Kohut; visual effects supervisors, Bruce Jones, Mark Russell, Hameed Shaukat; visual effects, Shade VFX, Rodeo VFX; stunt coordinator, Victor Paguia; associate producers, Stefan Metz, Christin Mizelle; assistant director, Jeffrey J.P. Wetzel; second unit directors, Alex Hillkurtz, Bruce Jones, G.A. Aguilar; casting, Laray Mayfield.
With: Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Anders Holm, Rene Russo, Zack Pearlman, Adam DeVine, Andrew Rannells, Christina Scherer, JoJo Kushner, Celia Weston, Nat Wolff, Linda Lavin, C.J. Wilson.

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The Intern Reviews

Meyers concocts a few madcap comedy situations to break up the otherwise low-key tone.

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | May 27, 2022

[Where] it succeeds its charm and grace, it lacks in depth. The meat of the story can be summarized in a sentence and ends up feeling somewhat superficially emotional...

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/5 | Oct 9, 2021

Although many critics panned The Intern, I believe the film has much to say, especially in a society where the elderly are often mocked or ignored just because they seem old-fashioned or have a hard time with technology...

Full Review | Sep 13, 2021

Feels like a checklist designed to make the audience think they got something more than they actually did.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Aug 20, 2021

The cinematic equivalent of a comfy chair, blanket and a mug of hot chocolate (obviously with whipped cream and marshmallows)...

Full Review | Jun 28, 2021

There seemed to be a lot of value placed on male approval, something Jules spent the entire film searching for, and ultimately finding in her intern.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2021

Relies on charm rather than knee slappers.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Feb 3, 2021

Though De Niro is watchable in practically anything, it's practically demeaning that such a revered actor is resorting to involvement in such generic, uninspired stuff.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/10 | Dec 4, 2020

The Intern isn't a fantastic film nor does it break any new cinematic ground, but it's enjoyable for what it is and, most importantly, it's also entertaining.

Full Review | Jul 17, 2020

Just go watch Baby Boom.

Full Review | Apr 29, 2020

It seemed kind of sexist.

The Intern presents a heartfelt multi-generational story without harping too hard on its traditional, yet fun heartfelt tropes.

Full Review | Original Score: 7.7/10 | Nov 13, 2019

A well-acted and sometimes moving tale of friendship and life lessons is let down by its own burgeoning desire to appear 'with it'.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Apr 22, 2019

Robert Deniro and Anne Hathaway are really charming in their roles.

Full Review | Original Score: C | Apr 19, 2019

The Intern is very enjoyable and is good at loosening the heartstrings a little. It's not a romance between De Niro and Hathaway (thankfully), but serves its purpose well in being a feel-good, character-driven film.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Apr 11, 2019

Nancy Meyers' movies are nice and feel-good, and so effortless that you wonder if she strives for more.

Full Review | Feb 9, 2019

I can't get the antiquated misogynistic, paternalistic norms out of my head.

Full Review | Feb 5, 2019

Strong work from Robert De Niro is wasted in a screenplay that is way too overstuffed with drama.

Full Review | Jan 18, 2019

De Niro and Hathaway are on good form, though the film's attitude to working women is bizarre. You can see why companies want retired interns - with their final salary pensions they're the only people who can afford to work unpaid in New York.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Nov 26, 2018

The film lacked the heart and the conviction that I was expecting, given the weighty premise. The missed opportunity is frustrating, especially from a film that has so much going for it.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Aug 30, 2018

The Intern Review

Think mary poppins, but older, and a guy, and retired..

The culture clash between Baby Boomers and Millennials makes a lot of sense and feels like a topic worthy of exploration. The Intern starts down that road and there is a lot of good in it. Both De Niro and Hathaway offer enough charm and humor to keep it afloat, and they are aided with a solid supporting cast which also includes Adam DeVine, Christina Scherer, Andrew Rannells, and Zack Pearlman. It is just unfortunate that the film decides that it needs to increase the stakes, and to do so late in the goings-on.

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The Intern : A Paean to the Power of Gentlemen

In Nancy Meyers’s new film, Robert De Niro plays a wise old man who helps a start-up CEO played by Anne Hathaway find the right work-life balance.

In The Intern, the businesswoman Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) and, by extension, the writer and director Nancy Meyers, has a question: Where did all the “real men” go? Jules mourns not for the bossy, sexist fools of the Mad Men era, but for grown-ups, men who could rock a pocket square, who had a handkerchief at the ready, who had a good head on their shoulders and ambitions for existence. Into this vacuum walks Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro), her new senior intern, a magical old man blessed with the wisdom of his generation but none of the baggage, ready to bring balance to her life.

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It’s easy to scoff, but The Intern is clearly a Nancy Meyers movie. Her previous films ( Something’s Gotta Give, It’s Complicated) saw heroines bemoan the romantic appeal and destructive foolishness of alpha dogs played by Jack Nicholson and Alec Baldwin. The Intern tweaks this formula by making its central relationship platonic: Its main character, Ben, is free of foibles and is a helpful fountain of paternalistic advice. Thanks largely to performances by De Niro and Hathaway, The Intern is a gentle, enjoyable fantasy—and certainly Meyers’s best film in more than a decade.

As befits a modern generation-gap comedy, The Intern is set at a start-up: a successful shopping website Jules founded called About the Fit that’s colonized a converted factory in Red Hook, Brooklyn. (As she has many other locales, Meyers fetishizes the borough’s architecture, giving it an almost artificial sheen.) Ben is a retired widower with plenty of time on his hands and a seemingly bottomless reserve of can-do spirit who applies to a senior internship program. Once he’s assigned to Jules, his inexhaustible patience with her mild Type-A personality makes them an unbeatable team as she weathers the bumps of expanding her company and balancing work and her personal life.

The Intern ’s stakes are appreciably low—there’s a major set-piece revolving around an inappropriate email that Jules accidentally sends—but the challenges of running a company make for a good narrative spine to build around. Meyers often struggles to make her central premises remotely relatable— It’s Complicated was about the expensive remodel of a Santa Barbara kitchen—but Ben is such a do-gooder that you’re instantly rooting for him to win Jules’s favor. Once she accepts him as a person with valuable insight to contribute, her life is suddenly besieged by a million tiny crises for him to solve.

Meyers has some fun with traditional fish-out-of-water humor: Ben struggles to set up a Facebook account, astonishes his fellow twenty-something interns by carrying a briefcase, and dispenses chivalrous dating advice that basically amounts to “maybe go easy on the texting.” But the pivotal piece of generational commentary comes when Jules gets drunk at a bar with her interns and starts bemoaning the arrested development of her generation’s men, doofuses who have no concept of their career goals or even how to dress beyond business casual, supposedly outstripped by her generation of women raised in the “Take Your Daughter to Work Day” era.

Chief among these offenders is Jules’s househusband Matt (Anders Holm), for whom the film has a hilarious lack of respect compared to Ben. Jules is late to meetings and a bit of a micromanager, but as start-up CEOs go, she’s pretty angelic: Her major conflict is finding time to be at home with Matt and their precocious moppet Paige (JoJo Kushner). Ben is there to gently nudge Jules away from the idea that she should scale back her life’s work out of some societal ideal of womanhood. But as is often the case, Meyers has her characters articulate each side of the debate a little too obviously, then fashions an ending that tries to have it both ways.

The Intern works, however, mostly because of the strength of its leads. De Niro hasn’t played anyone this mild-mannered in years, but he’s cute and reserved in the right ways, giving his trademark squinty nod-grins anytime they’re needed. Ben spends much of the first hour in a slightly melancholy mood, hovering on the outside of Jules’s life just waiting to be given a purpose again, but De Niro makes him sympathetic. Hathaway, too, takes Jules right up to the edge of being annoying over and over again, then pulls back each time with just the right amount of self-awareness. The various chuckleheads who constitute the supporting cast (including Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, and Nat Wolff) function as easy but weak punchlines for how feckless their generation of men have become. But The Intern has a solution: Two hours of concentrated Baby-Boomer wisdom and a drawer full of pocket squares, it posits, are all it takes to right even the most wayward path to adulthood.

About the Author

The Intern (I) (2015)

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Common Sense Says
Parents Say 6 Reviews
Kids Say 21 Reviews

Common Sense Media Review

Comedy about work, marriage is winning despite clichés.

Parents Need to Know

Why Age 14+?

Many products/labels seen/mentioned, including Dell, Apple, iPhone, Audi, Sony,

Some swearing, including "s--t," "ass," and "bitch.&quo

Some social drinking. In one scene, a character downs shots and gets so drunk sh

Some innuendo, prompted by a masseuse during a massage (references to sex, erect

Any Positive Content?

Friendship knows no age or hierarchy. Believe in yourself, and learn from those

Jules is kind, caring, driven, smart, and hardworking -- albeit over-stressed. B

Products & Purchases

Many products/labels seen/mentioned, including Dell, Apple, iPhone, Audi, Sony, Samsung, Casio, Netflix, Skype, Gilt Group, Stella Artois, and Budweiser.

Some swearing, including "s--t," "ass," and "bitch." One character gives another the finger while mouthing "f--k."

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Language in your kid's entertainment guide.

Drinking, Drugs & Smoking

Some social drinking. In one scene, a character downs shots and gets so drunk she throws up in a trash can. One character refers to needing a Xanax.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Drinking, Drugs & Smoking in your kid's entertainment guide.

Sex, Romance & Nudity

Some innuendo, prompted by a masseuse during a massage (references to sex, erections). Couples kiss while in bed. A married character is discovered to be cheating.

Did you know you can flag iffy content? Adjust limits for Sex, Romance & Nudity in your kid's entertainment guide.

Positive Messages

Friendship knows no age or hierarchy. Believe in yourself, and learn from those who've come before you. Other issues/themes include "having it all" and dealing with infidelity.

Positive Role Models

Jules is kind, caring, driven, smart, and hardworking -- albeit over-stressed. Ben is polite, very observant, kind, and empathetic. Despite his age, he doesn't feel superior, nor does he feel the need to look down on others who may not be as experienced in life as he is. On the downside, the cast shows a remarkable lack of diversity.

Parents need to know that despite being a bit formulaic, The Intern -- which stars Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway -- is a deeply felt, heartwarming movie about friendship, careers, and marriage. Although those are fairly serious themes, the movie takes a light touch with them, and teens may find its messages inspiring, particularly the reminders to believe in yourself and to learn from those who've come before you (though they may also take issue with its lack of diversity). Expect some swearing (mainly "ass" and its cousin, "badass," as well as "bitch" and "s--t"), and drinking (once to the point of getting drunk and throwing up), and a few suggestive jokes about erections and sex (plus kissing and a situation involving cheating). To stay in the loop on more movies like this, you can sign up for weekly Family Movie Night emails .

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Parent and Kid Reviews

Parents say (6)
Kids say (21)

Based on 6 parent reviews

A sweet encounter of two generations

What's the story.

Ben Whittaker ( Robert De Niro ) is a 70-year-old widower living in Brooklyn who's grown tired of retirement. He's tried everything from tai chi to yoga to Mandarin lessons and has visited his son and his family across the country many times. So when Ben spots a flier announcing that an e-commerce fashion site is looking for "senior interns" -- retirees willing to work as interns -- it seems fated for him to get the position. And he does. His assignment: to assist the website's founder, Jules Ostin ( Anne Hathaway ). But Jules -- who's juggling motherhood, wifehood, adulthood, and an e-commerce site beholden to venture capitalists who are agitating for her to hire a more experienced CEO -- doesn't think she needs an intern. Until she's proven wrong.

Is It Any Good?

THE INTERN wears its very big heart on its (stylish) sleeve, and it's none the worse for it. Director Nancy Meyers knows how to examine the real concerns women face -- how to have a fulfilling career and personal life while continuing to grow as a person -- with humor, compassion, and grace. Hathaway is winning as Jules, a woman who may be on the brink of a nervous breakdown but is so compassionate that you can't help but adore her despite her flaws. She meets her match in Ben, portrayed by De Niro with such warmth you can't help but love him, too.

The movie isn't without its flaws, including a stunning lack of diversity for a movie set in NYC and an oversimplified exploration of the challenges of juggling work and marriage. Nonetheless, Meyers deserves credit for even tackling this thorny subject -- including the tired but sadly still present tug-of-war between stay-at-home moms and working moms -- and presenting a nuanced approach to marital challenges. Ditto for attempting to portray a successful young businesswoman who's neither cut-throat nor ineffective, just overwhelmed and needing to find herself in the process, too.

Talk to Your Kids About ...

Families can talk about how The Intern addresses the idea of the generation gap and sharing experiences. What have the two main characters learned during their careers, and how has that positioned them to learn from each other? What do they gain from each other's experiences?

What is the film saying about women in the workplace and their struggles? How does it address the idea of "having it all" (or even "balancing it all")? Do you agree with the choices Jules makes?

How is drinking depicted in the movie? Is it glamorized at all?

Is Jules a role model -- both to viewers and to other characters in the movie? If yes, what makes her so? If not, what makes you doubt her? How does the film depict her as wife, mother and daughter?

Movie Details

In theaters : September 25, 2015
On DVD or streaming : January 19, 2016
Cast : Anne Hathaway , Robert De Niro , Nat Wolff
Director : Nancy Meyers
Inclusion Information : Female directors, Female actors
Studio : Warner Bros.
Genre : Comedy
Topics : Friendship
Run time : 121 minutes
MPAA rating : PG-13
MPAA explanation : some suggestive content and brief strong language
Last updated : August 13, 2024

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

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Movie Review: The Intern (2015)

Vincent Gaine
Movie Reviews
2 responses
--> October 6, 2015

Nancy Meyers’ The Intern is both about an intern and an intern in itself. Mainstream comedies often feature a young, driven individual whose commitment to his/her career affects his/her romantic or family relationships, but the sage advice of a smart minor character helps the protagonist see things more clearly and re-establish their priorities. That sub-plot serves as an intern under the management of the main narrative in such films as “The Devil Wears Prada,” “Jerry Maguire,” “ Friends With Benefits ” and Meyers’ own “ The Holiday ,” but The Intern turns this sub-plot into the primary narrative and finds more than enough material to deliver a genuinely warm and engaging film.

The added twist, of course, is that the smart adviser in this case is a retired seventy year-old widower who spent forty years in the phone book industry, but answers an ad for a senior citizen internship at an Internet shopping company. Already, this is far more detail than is normally given to the stereotype of the smart supporting character, as Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro, “ Silver Linings Playbook ”) begins the film with a voiceover about what he has done and how he now tries to fill his time. This narration forms a video application for About The Fit, run by super confident and successful go-getter Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway, “ Interstellar ”). Upon his arrival, Ben quickly makes himself useful despite his ignorance of the digital age. In pretty much the only similarity between this fine, funny and adorable comedy to the dismal “ Terminator Genisys ,” Ben proves that being old does not make him obsolete.

What Ben’s age does allow for is plenty of fish out of water comedy, especially as the young employees of About The Fit frequently turn to Ben for his experienced view, whether it be about getting yourself noticed at work, how to talk to the opposite sex or what the best apartment to rent might be. But while ATF staff Jason (Adam DeVine, “Pitch Perfect 2”), Becky (Christina Scherer), Davis (Zack Pearlman, “ The Virginity Hit ”) and Lewis (Jason Orley) seek Ben’s advice in these matters, Jules remains largely separate, confident and controlled in her role, and initially hesitant about Ben. But as the film progresses, she gradually warms to and learns from him as well.

Feminist hackles may rise at this apparent intrusion of patriarchy into what is ostensibly a progressive image of contemporary womanhood. However, Jules is far from a stereotypical career woman, as rather than being a brash, ballbusting bitch, Meyers along with the constantly watchable Hathaway create a rounded, plausible and likable character, driven but sympathetic, and while she may be devoted to her company, Jules is also a loving if somewhat harried mother and wife. Crucially, Jules’ commitment to her work is not framed as a failure of her as a mother, as it could so easily have been. Instead, The Intern dares to suggest that a woman can have it all, and that while there is a price, that price is not some crucial part of her identity but the stress and exhaustion familiar to many in today’s super fast professional spheres. The film achieves its portrayal of womanhood by making Jules’ development the main arc of the narrative, while Ben largely stays static. Along the way he learns about Facebook and develops a romance with masseuse Fiona (Rene Russo, “ Nightcrawler ”), but these are sub-plots rather than the central narrative. The film could so easily have focused on aged romance and sexuality, but by keeping the central relationship one of friendship between Ben and Jules, The Intern is startlingly refreshing.

Not that it is without flaws. While Jules is well rounded, other female characters in the film are more problematic. Fiona is charming and it is pleasing to see a woman of Russo’s age getting roles, but she is largely a cipher and her presence in the film relates entirely to Ben still having some form of sexuality. Worse are two minor characters — women of Ben’s age that are solely comedic caricatures. One is a horny old crone that Ben wants to avoid; the other a dotty old dear who seems perpetually confused. While the appearances of these characters are brief, they are still as irritating as everyone else is pleasantly distinct and non-extreme. In addition there is a comedy heist set piece that may highlight once again that Ben is cool under pressure while his young colleagues panic, but is unnecessarily silly and strays too far into farcical territory.

Such niggles are largely forgotten, however, in the film’s central highlight. Meyers has delivered many winning, warm and witty romantic comedies over the years, including “The Holiday,” “It’s Complicated” and “Something’s Gotta Give.” One of her key talents is affecting dialogue scenes, and The Intern features several of these between various characters. The highlight of the film is one such sequence: An extraordinary long discussion scene between Ben and Jules that highlights their similarities and differences, and crucially the resonances between them. Gender relations are smartly interwoven with personal issues and, while Ben is wise, the scene does not suggest that Jules simply accept what he advises. Indeed, he often acts more as a sounding board for what Jules needs to get off her chest, once again the film taking the viewer through Jules’ development, often placing us in Ben’s position. While Ben and Jules are very different people, they form a remarkable connection that is neither creepy nor cloying, but genuine, affecting and affectionate. Indeed, their relationship is rather like the film as a whole: Warm, pleasing and ultimately adorable.

Tagged: intern , internet , relationship , retirement , widower

Dr. Vincent M. Gaine is a film and television researcher. His first book, Existentialism and Social Engagement in the Films of Michael Mann was published by Palgrave MacMillan in 2011. His work on film and media has been published in Cinema Journal and The Journal of Technology , Theology and Religion , as well as edited collections including The 21st Century Superhero and The Directory of World Cinema .

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'Movie Review: The Intern (2015)' have 2 comments

October 6, 2015 @ 8:29 pm Crapduster

I may have to reconsider … I thought this was a cringeworthy romantic comedy.

October 6, 2015 @ 10:11 pm crisisis

Anne Hathaway

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Review: 'the intern,' with anne hathaway and robert de niro, is a fantastic film.

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Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro are a delight in Nancy Meyers's pretty terrific (and genuinely feminist) mainstream comedy.

The Box Office:

The Intern will be opening on Thursday night starting at 7:00 pm. It comes courtesy of Warner Bros. /Time Warner Inc. and was co-produced via Warner and Waverly Films. It comes at a cost of $35 million and marks Nancy Meyers’s first effort since It’s Complicated back in 2009, which earned $219 million on an $85 million budget. She hasn’t been shy about the challenges of getting funding for her pictures since then.

Her high production value projects aren’t cheap enough to go indie and yet the female-centric material is still a tough sell no matter how many of her pictures cross $200 million worldwide on an under-$100 million budget (four out of five, sorry Parent Trap ). The film originated at Paramount/Viacom Inc. before being put into turnaround and eventually making its way to Warner Bros. It stands to reason that the movie should be somewhat leggy presuming it can open. It’s a rather rare mainstream studio release targeting adult women and grown-ups in general that isn’t necessarily chasing Oscar glory.

I’d love you tell you to expect an opening between $16 million ( Something’s Gotta Give ) and $22 million ( It’s Complicated ) with the caveat not to expect December legs. But Robert De Niro isn’t necessarily box office and Anne Hathaway is iffy as a straight lead. She’s added value element gold to be sure, but she hasn’t had a lot of outright mainstream lead roles. Comparisons may be made to The Devil Wears Prada , but this is not that movie, both in terms of thematic elements and star power. So I’m honestly just sitting here hoping it doesn’t flop and send movies of this nature further down the rabbit hole.

The Review:

What's most impressive about The Intern is how much it does with its premise, and just as importantly what it doesn't do with it. The notion of a seventy-year-old retired widower re-entering the workforce is one rife with potential for cheap jokes and easy generational shots. But, give or take a few trailer friendly moments, it never actually goes there. There are so many ways that the Nancy Meyers picture could have descended into farce, so many ways it could have descended into cheap theatrics or crowd pleasing hogwash. But time and time again it goes to the brink only to pull itself back with level-headed humanity and insightful empathy. It has a lot on its mind beyond its particular premise, yet at its core it works as a character piece about an unexpected relationship that helps both parties grow and better themselves accordingly. It's the kind of well-oiled machine that would have been taken for granted twenty years ago but now feels like a revelation.

The Intern concerns Robert De Niro as 70-year old widower Ben Whittaker who signs up for an internship at an online clothes store run by an entrepreneurial Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) struggling to juggle the various facets demanding her time. The film's opening moments immediately earn our sympathy and respect, and it's clear that the movie is after more than arbitrary punchlines. Yes, it plays a little with generation gaps a little, but everyone has a relaxed chemistry, and there is an overriding sense of can-do decency. As Ben adjusts to a different kind of workforce, and Jules deals with challenges to her leadership and the push-pull of family and work, they of course eventually form a working relationship that blossoms into a genuine friendship. But what sets the film apart is the lack of overt villainy and the presence of an authentic point-of-view about the subjects it raises.

Robert De Niro is pretty great here, and those who would argue that he is a shadow of his former self because he doesn't kill people in Martin Scorsese movies anymore are doing themselves a disservice. The screenplay walks a fine line between making Ben's experience and wisdom into a genuine asset and allowing him to overtly patronize his younger coworkers, and the script never tips over into the latter. Ben is too old to carry grudges or take would-be slights personally, and the film benefits from said attitude so it can get to the business at hand. He has exceptional chemistry not just with Hathaway but with his fellow coworkers (Christina Scherer, Adam Devine, etc.) and with Rene Russo in a romantic subplot that just barely works. It's an unnecessary tangent, but their "first date" is surprisingly moving and I'm always happy to see Russo onscreen.

But truth be told, this is Anne Hathaway's vehicle. It is as much about Ostin struggling to maintain a successful company while preserving healthy relationships elsewhere as it is about Ben becoming an employee again. I have to wonder if the hook with a 70-year old male intern was required for commercial considerations, but I digress. Meyers based her on real young female entrepreneurs who became CEOs, and as such the film champions her success rather than vilifying her or forcing her to make impossible choices. While her initial introduction is a bit quirky (she rides a bicycle through the office to save time) and we initially hear fearful rumblings from co-workers, the atmosphere in the workplace is one of mutual respect. Hathaway is usually pretty great, but this is the kind of strong movie star turn that would garner more attention if releases like The Intern were taken more seriously as a matter of course.

And, yes, in terms of how it deals with the double standards of women in the workplace and mothers having careers, it is unabashedly feminist and explicitly nonjudgmental in a way that shouldn't still be surprising in 2015. I bring all of this up to emphasize that The Intern is a genuine adult comedy in that its characters behave like adults rather than stereotypical sitcom constructs. And the picture, which runs two hours, allows everyone their moment or two to shine and allows the core relationships time to grow, change, and be challenged. It touches on the judgment in which mothers hold other mothers, as well as the idea that businesses that cater to women are inherently less serious than those that cater to men. Yes, this workplace comedy centering on a female CEO should be taken every bit as seriously as would-be prestige dramas about great men or gritty crime dramas about scary men who harm those around them. Meyers doesn't necessarily rub the institutional sexism in our face, but it's under the surface as an additional issue to be dealt with.

I was constantly impressed by how often the picture presented a scenario that could have led to conventional conflict and strife, but instead was resolved through level-headed adult reactions and communication. And that includes a development that threatens to tip the third act into melodrama but instead allows it to fully engage its main characters in a fantastic dialogue sequence where opinions are aired, and wisdom is shared or challenged. It reminds us how infrequently movie characters just talk to each other and hash out ideas or opinions beyond mere plot-related exposition, and yet this picture is filled with moments just like that. There is no overt villainy in the picture, with the climax hingeing on choices the characters make rather than adversaries they must defeat. It is not edgy or gritty, and thus it may seem slight in the face of would-be Oscar contenders, but its quality should not be ignored due to its emphasis on workplace relationships or its lack of grim spectacle. That it is genuinely witty and consistently entertaining almost counts as a bonus, but said qualities should still be pointed out.

Nancy Meyers's The Intern is a near-perfect studio programmer, the kind of mainstream multiplex fare that adult moviegoers and critics say we never get anymore. It is intelligent, empathetic, insightful, and charming to a fault, with great star turns from De Niro and Hathaway. There are moments here and there with which I might quibble (a frantic attempt to delete an embarrassing email is a needless distraction), and I don't agree with every word every major character has to say (Hathaway has a drunken monologue that's going to inspire a few think pieces), but on the whole it works as refreshingly adult entertainment in the best sense of the phrase. This is Nancy Meyers's best film as a writer and a director, and I hope Hollywood allows her to make another one in fewer than six years this time. It is tempting to dismiss films of this nature or to quantify their success in lesser terms as a matter of course. But that would be a mistake. The Intern is a truly superb film.

Editorial Standards
Forbes Accolades

By Peter Travers

Peter Travers

It's not much of a movie. But raging bull Robert De Niro , suited up to play for humor and heart, proves he can be a world-class charmer. He plays Ben Whittaker, 70, a retired widower hired as an intern for a Brooklyn e-commerce fashion house run by Jules Ostin ( Anne Hathaway ), a workaholic wife and mother who doesn't know what a geezer can teach her until, well, she does. That's it — pure fantasy piffle from writer-director Nancy Meyers. De Niro makes it go down easy.

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Comedy , Drama

Content Caution

In Theaters

September 25, 2015
Robert De Niro as Ben; Anne Hathaway as Jules; Rene Russo as Fiona; Anders Holm as Matt; Zack Pearlman as Davis; Andrew Rannells as Cameron; Adam DeVine as Jason; Linda Lavin as Patty

Home Release Date

January 19, 2016
Nancy Meyers

Distributor

Warner Bros.

Movie Review

Ben Whittaker isn’t exactly unhappy. He’s retired with the means to do pretty much whatever he’d like, within reason. He’s got a good relationship going with his son and his family. A nice home. Solid friends. Decent health.

But Ben Whittaker isn’t exactly happy, either. His loving, lifelong wife has been dead for three years now. And just existing, as he’s been doing since her passing, isn’t cutting it. He’s a man who’s always worked hard. Granted, he worked for 40 years in the manufacture of phone books, which pretty much makes his life’s work obsolete at this point. But he still feels he has something to give. He’s established a work ethic that’s difficult to discard.

So when Ben spots a flyer for a “senior intern” position at a local Internet-based clothing company, he decides that might have potential. He knows very little about fashion, other than the three-button business suits he’s used to regularly wearing. And he knows even less about the Internet. But working with young people and staying in motion holds a great deal of appeal.

After figuring out how to create an online introduction video and making it through a series of interviews, the nicely pressed 70-year-old finally gets the position. (Right before they tell him he really doesn’t have to feel the need to wear a suit and tie. It’s a directive he’s going to ignore, though, because professional is professional to Ben. Old habits die hard.)

Our newly minted older intern is assigned to help the company’s overstretched but extremely capable founder, Jules Ostin. But she doesn’t really want him there and is only going along with the program to be a good example for the rest of the 200-person company. What Jules doesn’t yet know, however, is that her company—and she herself, for that matter—is in need of someone like Ben.

Sometimes an Internet-age business and a completely modern entrepreneur can use a little old-school inspiration.

Sometimes both the young and old have holes to fill and something to give.

Positive Elements

“I’m loyal and trustworthy,” Ben says in his interview process. Indeed he is. And that’s just the kind of stuff that makes a difference for Jules and her company of twenty- and thirtysomethings. As Ben starts helping out and forming friendships, he begins to inspire the young men around him to take better care of their appearance. (Hey, it’s an aspirational movie. Nobody said it had to be realistic!) He encourages people. They respond by putting more focus on solid relationships. His soft-spoken demeanor and wise observations eventually have a very calming and almost parental impact on Jules as well. In fact, Jules and Ben form a sort of loving, father-daughter bond that benefits them both.

Ben certainly admires Jules’ work ethic. She’s the kind of boss who personally takes customer service calls to make sure her business delivers the excellence that it promises. And she rightly laments what the current societal age has done to young men. “Women went from girls to women,” she says. “While men went from men to boys.”

Jules and her husband, Matt, have marital difficulties. And though they really never fix the core of their problem, they do at least apologize for their mistakes (and an infidelity).

Spiritual Elements

Sexual & romantic content.

When Ben first meets the company’s in-house masseuse, Fiona, she lightly massages his tight shoulders and lower back. He hastily grabs a newspaper to cover his unexpected arousal. Later she offers him an in-office foot rub that gives an accidental observer the impression that she’s doing something more sexual to him. The two do start dating, and the film implies that they sleep together. (She’s over at his house in the morning.) We see a different female acquaintance kiss Ben on the lips.

Matt lies about his activities and is spotted kissing another woman, making it clear that he’s having an extramarital affair. (He admits to it later.) A fully dressed Jules and Matt kiss and embrace while in bed. One of the guys Ben works with talks about having sex with his girlfriend’s roommate.

Violent Content

Crude or profane language.

One spoken f-word is joined by a mouthed one and a text message sporting the truncated phrase “I f-ed up.” We hear two or three uses each of “a–” and “b–ch.” “Oh my god” is spit out nearly 20 times.

Drug & Alcohol Content

Both Ben and Jules have glasses of wine with dinner. They share a couple of beers and a pizza, and order wine during a flight. Jules and Matt drink vodka. Company employees do shots at a bar, and Jules gets drunk, eventually vomiting into a trash can. Ben spots Jules’ driver drinking from a flask and steps in to take over the driving duties.

Other Noteworthy Elements

Ben and several others break into a woman’s house to delete an errant email.

At a time when every situation comedy and romantic comedy at the movie house seems to be the same kind of edgy and raunchy, uh, Trainwreck, you really start longing for something nice to laugh over and enjoy. And The Intern initially appears to fit the bill. After all, the idea of a distinguished and retired gentleman injecting his old-school suit-and-tie sensibilities into the working world of some T-shirt-clad Millennials has such an appealing ring to it.

The film starts out so well, too. Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway create the kind of likeable and earnest characters that just feel good to watch for a couple of hours. The pic raises questions about the place of family and business in a stretched-too-thin world. It glances at how our society has taken all the manliness and maturity out of men. And it even has De Niro’s Ben sweetly salute the value of a wonderful marriage by way of him probing the pain of losing his longstanding mate.

Unfortunately, The Intern doesn’t have enough experience to know where to go from there. It’s quite frankly too PC-minded to suggest that anything in today’s or yesterday’s societal choices are solidly good or bad . And so it never quite resolves its story. It tiptoes around its family issues and infidelities, throws in a few crude sight gags and dabbles in some strange silliness to cover up the awkwardness it seems to feel, and then slaps on a quick bow right before the closing credits.

So The Intern does some good work. But it never finishes the job.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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George Lucas' Original Han Solo Was Actually A Jedi (& He Wasn't Human Either)

"it is brutal": how michael fassbender's 2010 action movie is one of the better historical roman depictions explained by expert, james cameron explains why the terminator franchise needs to move on from past characters & iconography, the intern is an insubstantial nancy meyers comedy kept afloat by robert de niro and anne hathaway's screen chemistry..

The Intern stars Robert De Niro as Ben Whittaker, a 70-year old widower and longtime New York resident who has grown frustrated with the retirement lifestyle and finds himself unable to fill "the hole" that he now feels in his day-to-day existence. An opportunity to fix his problem presents itself to Ben in the form of an intern program that is aimed at senior citizens, offered by a fast-rising fashion based e-commerce company, founded by one Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway).

Ben applies and is selected for the program, which leads to him becoming Jule's assistant; though at first put off by Ben's straightforward polite and supportive manner, the meticulous and passionate Jules eventually starts to warm to her "senior intern." Soon Ben proves to be not just a model employee who brings out the best in his younger co-workers, but also a good friend who has both the experience and patience to help Jules to make important decisions that concern not just the future of her company, but also her own personal life and happiness.

Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway in The Intern

The Intern is the new film written and directed by Nancy Meyers, who (similar to a director like Woody Allen) has spent the past fifteen years churning out original comedies that revolve around the problems of middle-upper class people - with such movies as What Women Want , Something's Gotta Give , The Holiday , and It's Complicated . Meyers' directorial efforts also tend to be of a fluffier variety, and that is also the case with The Intern ... which is not to say the film doesn't have its appeal.

Meyer's Intern screenplay is relatively episodic in its structure, shifting gears from being a 21st century workplace comedy during its first act (which is also the least successful act), to being a buddy comedy about Ben and Jules with its second act (the best part of the narrative), before becoming a relationship melodrama in a third act that (like most conflicts in the movie) gets wrapped up a bit too easily. The film likewise has mixed success when it blends sitcom hijinks and commentary on gender-based double standards in the work force, as well as differences between Baby Boomer and Millennial generational outlooks. Meyers avoids creating any ungainly tonal shifts though, instead balancing the film's comedic and dramatic beats with a deft hand, while at the same time keeping the proceedings pleasant enough to prevent this soufflé of a movie from collapsing.

Adam DeVine, Zack Pearlman, Jason Orley, and Rober De Niro in The Intern

Cinematographer Stephen Goldblatt ( The Help , Get on Up ) and Meyers filmed The Intern in a visually neat and tidy fashion - though not an interesting one - but the true craftsmanship of the movie lies with its production design. The world of The Intern provides an idyllic vision of the New York life, where everything is polished to a shine, while even lifelong working-class people can afford to maintain well-furnished homes/apartments boasting impressive interior design. It's a fantasy setting, in other words, but that's part of The Intern 's appeal - and though the movie's world is too whitebread and unrealistic for its own good (especially when it tries to be serious or thoughtful), Meyers and her collaborators are to be commended for making the setting a handsome one to look at.

The relationship between Ben and Jules is the glue holding The Intern together, as Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway (who are both Oscar-winners, after all) bring a solid combination of screen chemistry and heart to their characters, making the friendship that forms between them all the more convincing. Ben is a good-natured character (with patience to spare) who boarders on being unbelievable, but De Niro injects the character with enough in the way of distinct mannerisms and quirks to ensure that he's more than a one-note kindly grandpa. Meanwhile, Jules is not per se a stretch for Hathaway, as the character is a self-deprecating Type A personality that she's played before, but all the same, Hathaway handles the character's harder edges and vulnerabilities with equal aplomb.

The Intern - Anne Hathaway and Rober De Niro

Most of the supporting characters in The Intern are the type of two-dimensional archetypes that one expects to find in your average workplace comedy, but they are brought to life by an overall likable and talented cast - including, Adam DeVine ( Pitch Perfect ), Zack Pearlman ( The Inbetweeners ), Jason Orley ( 1600 Penn ), and Andrew Rannells ( Girls ). Meanwhile, Rene Russo has a small role as the masseuse for Jules' company - and the love interest for Ben - while Anders Holm (DeVine's Workaholics costar) gets a slightly meatier role as Jules' husband, Matt. Some viewers will also recognize the actors, such as Nat Wolff ( Paper Towns ), who make brief appearances throughout the film... even if the cameos aren't that memorable, otherwise.

In the end, The Intern is an insubstantial Nancy Meyers comedy kept afloat by Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway's screen chemistry. The film broaches a number of interesting topics (not always in the most organic fashion, admittedly) without offering much insight through its comical setups, yet enough of the comedy that gets thrown at the wall sticks - while the drama is grounded by the touching bond between the movie's lead characters. As far as date night options go (or films that you can watch with your parents), you could do much worse.

The Intern is now playing in U.S. theaters. It is 121 minutes long and is Rated PG-13 for suggestive content and brief strong language.

Let us know what you thought of the film in the comment section below.

In Nancy Meyers' 2015 comedy The Intern, Robert De Niro stars as 70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker, who befriends his much younger boss Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), the CEO who helps him work as a senior intern at her fashion site.

Movie Reviews
2.5 star movies

"Lost in Melodrama"

	None	Light	Moderate	Heavy
Language
Violence
Sex
Nudity

What You Need To Know:

(BB, Fe, BB, C, Pa, LLL, S, AA, M) moral worldview, character emphasizes doing the right thing no matter what, slight feminist elements, husband is unhappy in his role as just a caregiver but changes, thoughtfulness and care for others is a major part of the story, a man gives up his privacy and lets someone who needs a place to live come stay with him, characters are held accountable for some wrongdoings, repent and offer apologies, relationships are mended and repercussions of an affair are shown, character is doing some new age exercise; about 27 obscenities and profanities, including two “f” words, the middle finger gesture is shown, and woman vomits; no violence; light or implied sexual content includes husband has an affair and hides it from his wife but then tells her and repercussions of an affair shown, a masseuse purposefully massages a man’s butt as a flirting device, a man puts a newspaper over his groin to hide any signs of arousal, someone mistakes a massage as a sexual act being performed, it’s implied a couple sleeps together outside of marriage; no nudity; a driver drinks from a flask before he’s supposed to drive someone somewhere but is found out and confronted, drunkenness; no smoking or drugs; a woman talks about her divorce, a woman and her mother have a dysfunctional relationship, positive portrayal of marriage, and a group of men break into a woman’s house and delete an email from her computer.

More Detail:

THE INTERN stars Anne Hathaway as the successful, married owner of a new fashion retailer, who hires a 70-year-old retired, widowed manufacturing executive, played by Robert DeNiro. The INTERN has a moral worldview, where one character changes the others to show that doing the right thing, no matter what the consequences, should always be done, though there are some cautionary elements.

In THE INTERN, Jules Ostin, founder of online fashion retailer About the Fit, watches over her startup with the care of a mother over a newborn baby. Although she has over 200 employees, she still finds it hard to let the brilliant people she’s hired take over many of the responsibilities she insists on micromanaging. So when it’s announced to her that she’s getting an intern via the new senior internship program to assist her, she immediately tries to beg off, but is stuck with the prospect when her right-hand man, Cameron, reminds her she’s must set a good example for the company.

Ben Whitaker, a 70-year-old widower in retirement, is getting antsy, unable to find fulfillment in any of his hobbies. He spent forty years working as an executive at a phonebook manufacturing company, an extinct necessity of life that’s awfully metaphoric for his own current state of affairs. While out shopping one day, he notices a flyer for the internship program at About the Fit and decides to apply. His knowledge, experience, and easygoing personality win over the young executives and leave a powerful impression on his fellow twentysomething interns.

Ben’s assigned to Jules to be her personal assistant and is told that she probably won’t need him much. Day after day, he sits at his desk waiting for an assignment from his new boss and dutifully mans his station while doling out wisdom to his colleagues on everything from love to old-school fashion. His initiative with some small tasks soon catches the eye of Jules, and she begins to warm up to him. As he gradually becomes part of her world, he learns the company is planning to hire a CEO and take away some of her responsibilities. This devastates her to think of someone else running her company. Ben’s strength and support of Jules elevate him to near father figure status.

All of the hip, young, tech culture doesn’t seem to faze Ben, though he can’t quite understand how to set up his new Facebook profile. Unexpectedly, he finds new love from the company masseuse, Fiona, and the pair begins a quiet and slow romance behind the scenes.

THE INTERN has some slightly cheesy elements, but overall well done. Though what starts out as a lighthearted, feel-good comedy turns into something else completely as hour number two arrives. At first, the story focuses on Ben as he ventures into uncharted territory with habits of his old-fashioned professional etiquette still entrenched in every detail of his life. It’s charming and endearing to say the least, and it sets up the expectation that this will be a story about a generation gap being bridged as old and young find the value in each other.

Then, however, Jules and her tale of stoic leadership takes center stage, and all the momentum shifts dramatically to her, completely changing the story’s focus. This is unfortunate, as Ben’s much more likable, and his story more interesting, than Jules’ personal melodrama about finding a balance between work, marital bliss and family life.

THE INTERN has a moral worldview, some slight feminist comments. One of the main characters helps the others around him become better people by showing a good example of always doing the right thing. Caring for others is also a major part of the story. Also, characters are held accountable for some wrongdoings and offer apologies, but others don’t. THE INTERN also has a significant amount of foul language, innuendo and a scene of drunkenness. Strong or extreme caution is advised.

Review: ‘In the Summers’ shows an evolving bond between divorced dad and his two daughters

A father dances with a woman in his kitchen as a young teen watches.

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As “In the Summers” begins, Vicente is anxious. Sitting in his car, obsessively flicking his lighter, absentmindedly banging his hand on the steering wheel to calm his nerves, this working-class everyman looks out the window, waiting. The most important time of the year for Vicente is about to start — the season that defines him. His two young daughters finally emerge from the airport, and he excitedly goes to receive them. The summers are when he gets to be a dad. The summers are his chance to prove himself.

Told in four chapters over the span of a little less than 20 years, Colombian American writer-director Alessandra Lacorazza’s gorgeous feature debut may call to mind other singular indies such as “Moonlight” and “Aftersun” in its structure and themes, but this deceptively modest autobiographical drama is so precise and insightful that it comfortably occupies its own emotional landscape. It’s a film about that father, but it is also about his little girls, who won’t be so little for long.

The first chapter lays the groundwork for the film’s narrative framework. Vicente (played by rapper René Pérez Joglar, who records under the name Residente) lives in Las Cruces, N.M., in his late mother’s home. He moved there at some point after he and his wife divorced, and now he gets custody of Eva (Luciana Quinonez) and her older sister Violeta (Dreya Renae Castillo), who normally reside with their mom in California, only during the summers. Eva and Violeta may be grade-school age, still impressionable enough to look up to their gregarious, affectionate dad, but they can detect the faint cracks in his jovial surface. Vicente drinks a little too much, blows his top a little too easily. He wants his daughters to have a good time in Las Cruces, but what he really wants is for them to know that he’s a great father. The divorce is never mentioned, but Vicente is still fighting that battle.

Sergio Lira and Lynette Coll pose for photos at Echo Park Lake on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024.

Their first movie won Sundance. For Luz Films, it’s only the beginning

‘In the Summers’ is the first project by Luz Films, an L.A.-based company focusing on producing Latinx prestige pictures. The film took the top prize at the 2024 Sundance Film Festival.

Feb. 29, 2024

The opening segment ends on a curious, ambiguous note — Violeta impulsively decides to cut her hair boyishly short, which sets off her conservative-minded father — that will inform much that follows. Over the ensuing three chapters, in much the same manner as “Moonlight,” “In the Summers” keeps jumping forward in time. Eva and Violeta will return to Las Cruces — both sisters don’t always make the trip, however — as we witness the shift in this father-daughter relationship during these pivotal summers. (Older actors play the daughters in subsequent chapters.) Lacorazza is a filmmaker who values showing over telling, resisting big speeches that lay out the characters’ mind-sets. Instead, a few images that repeat across chapters explain everything. Just watch as Vicente’s once-pristine backyard pool gradually degrades from neglect.

Winner of the Grand Jury Prize and the Directing Award at this year’s Sundance, “In the Summers” springs from Lacorazza’s memories of her late father, and the film’s most shocking moment, a car ride that serves as the second part’s disquieting finale, happened almost exactly the same way in real life. A filmmaker drawing from personal experience can sometimes risk suffering from a lack of perspective — she knows these incidents so intimately, but the audience is left on the outside — but once this richly observed, patiently crafted drama’s structure becomes apparent, each new chapter possesses a gripping suspense.

How have the three characters changed since we last saw them? And how might this new summer heal (or worsen) the invisible wounds inflicted in the previous chapter? Lacorazza’s movie is one of gradations, the daughters in the later chapters subtly carrying the cumulative disappointment and stubborn love these woman still harbor for their flawed father. Vicente and his girls have trouble speaking directly to the fault lines that have built up over the years between them. Lacorazza holds that tension, her characters’ sad smiles speaking volumes.

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The rotating actors who portray Eva and Violeta are all superb — especially Sasha Calle and Lío Mehiel in the final chapter, which drives home Lacorazza’s meditation on resignation and acceptance. But Pérez Joglar’s Vicente, similarly to Paul Mescal ’s troubled Calum in “Aftersun,” is both the film’s centerpiece and its greatest mystery. A maddening combination of good intentions and self-destructive tendencies — accommodating sensitivity and unforgivable pettiness — Vicente has a sharp mind for math, physics and astronomy that he loves sharing with his daughters. But as played by Pérez Joglar, making his feature acting debut, this prideful father also is consumed with the belief that life never gave him a fair shake, and he takes that resentment out on everyone around him. It’s a performance full of repressed bitterness, and the pain comes through most clearly once Vicente recognizes that his kids will grow out of their unquestioning adoration for their old man. As much as he tries to convince them he’s a terrific dad, he can’t disguise his failings — including his inability to hold onto a job or a partner — but it’s his insistence on propping up that illusion that becomes the movie’s tragedy. Much like his girls, we never truly see all of Vicente because he’s so determined to hide himself.

But families have a way of understanding one another in ways the rest of us can never fully grasp. Intriguingly, Lacorazza opts not to include subtitles for the film’s Spanish dialogue. Vicente occasionally uses Spanish with his daughters, who know what he’s saying but prefer to speak in English. “I made this choice to allow audiences to engage with emotions that transcend language,” Lacorazza has explained, and for those who don’t speak Spanish (like this reviewer), the choice achieves the desired effect.

But it also adds another grace note to this delicate, sophisticated portrait of class, sexuality and parenthood. There may be times during “In the Summers” when you will not comprehend every single thing that’s said. But the characters do, sharing a private language of family dysfunction and unexpressed anguish. The rest of us can watch — we may even understand the gist of their conversations — but their world is theirs alone. It is a testament to this deeply moving film that Lacorazza has laid bare her own complicated feelings about her father while acknowledging that, as shown in a silently shattering final scene, sometimes words fail.

'In the Summers'

Not rated Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes Playing: Opens Friday, Sept. 20, at the Laemmle Royal, West Los Angeles

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Review: In ‘The Intern,’ She’s the Boss, but He’s the Star
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COMMENTS

The Intern movie review & film summary (2015)
The adages of "The Intern" are delivered in a comedy package that, for the most part, is sane, sweet, and smart, and a lot of the time, actually funny. A budding romance between Ben and the company's in-house masseuse (Rene Russo) is fodder for two groan-inducing visual gags. But a silly set piece in which Ben enlists some of the younger ...
The Intern
The Intern. Starting a new job can be a difficult challenge, especially if you're already retired. Looking to get back into the game, 70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) seizes the ...
'The Intern': Film Review
It's all a little too perfect. There is one surprise twist in the third act that suggests her life may not be as ideal as she thinks. But even this stumbling block is resolved much too quickly ...
Review: In 'The Intern,' She's the Boss, but He's the Star
Directed by Nancy Meyers. Comedy, Drama. PG-13. 2h 1m. By Manohla Dargis. Sept. 24, 2015. The director Nancy Meyers doesn't just make movies, she makes the kind of lifestyle fantasies you sink ...
Film Review: 'The Intern'
Film Review: 'The Intern'. Nancy Meyers' smug workplace fable needs every ounce of Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro's combined star quality. Behind at least one successful woman stands an ...
The Intern
Full Review | Original Score: C | Apr 19, 2019. Mae Abdulbaki Movies with Mae. The Intern is very enjoyable and is good at loosening the heartstrings a little. It's not a romance between De Niro ...
The Intern (2015)
The Intern: Directed by Nancy Meyers. With Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm. Seventy-year-old widower Ben Whittaker has discovered that retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and run by Jules Ostin.
The Intern Review
The Intern starts down that road and there is a lot of good in it. Both De Niro and Hathaway offer enough charm and humor to keep it afloat, and they are aided with a solid supporting cast which ...
The Intern : A Paean to the Power of Gentlemen
The Intern tweaks this formula by making its central relationship platonic: Its main character, Ben, is free of foibles and is a helpful fountain of paternalistic advice. Thanks largely to ...
The Intern (2015)
The Intern. When the film gets more serious it produces some affecting moments between the two leads. Hathaway's take on the underwritten Jules is refreshingly unshowy, but De Niro seems a little lost. Meyers wants this to be all sort of amiable and charming and a big warm bath of a film, and it is. The Internship delivers what it promises ...
Review: 'The Intern' is a Nancy Meyers comedy, for better or worse
Her new film, "The Intern," is every inch a Nancy Meyers film, for better and for worse. As one of the most successful female filmmakers in Hollywood, Meyers makes movies as aggressively and ...
The Intern (2015)
7/10. Sweet, sensitive, thoughtful movie - so much better than I expected. grantss 19 August 2016. A retired 70-year-old widower, Ben (played by Robert De Niro), is bored with retired life. He applies to a be a senior intern at an online fashion retailer and gets the position. The founder of the company is Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), a ...
The Intern
The Intern - Metacritic. 2015. PG-13. Warner Bros. 2 h 1 m. Summary Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) is a 70-year-old widower who has discovered that retirement isn't all it's cracked up to be. Seizing an opportunity to get back in the game, he becomes a senior intern at an online fashion site, founded and run by Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway).
The Intern Movie Review
Parents need to know that despite being a bit formulaic, The Intern-- which stars Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway-- is a deeply felt, heartwarming movie about friendship, careers, and marriage.Although those are fairly serious themes, the movie takes a light touch with them, and teens may find its messages inspiring, particularly the reminders to believe in yourself and to learn from those ...
Movie Review: The Intern (2015)
Movie review of The Intern (2015) by The Critical Movie Critics | A 70-year-old widower decides to get back into the workforce as a fashion site intern. Become a Critical Movie Critic; ... 'Movie Review: The Intern (2015)' have 2 comments. October 6, 2015 @ 8:29 pm Crapduster. I may have to reconsider … I thought this was a cringeworthy ...
Review: 'The Intern,' With Anne Hathaway And Robert De Niro ...
Nancy Meyers's The Intern is a near-perfect studio programmer, the kind of mainstream multiplex fare that adult moviegoers and critics say we never get anymore. It is intelligent, empathetic ...
'The Intern' Movie Review
The Intern. Robert De Niro props up this comedy about a seventysomething widow at an e-commerce site. By Peter Travers. September 24, 2015. Francois Duhamel/Warner Bros. It's not much of a movie ...
The Intern
At a time when every situation comedy and romantic comedy at the movie house seems to be the same kind of edgy and raunchy, uh, Trainwreck, you really start longing for something nice to laugh over and enjoy. And The Intern initially appears to fit the bill. After all, the idea of a distinguished and retired gentleman injecting his old-school ...
The Intern Review
The Intern is the new film written and directed by Nancy Meyers, who (similar to a director like Woody Allen) has spent the past fifteen years churning out original comedies that revolve around the problems of middle-upper class people - with such movies as What Women Want, Something's Gotta Give, The Holiday, and It's Complicated.Meyers' directorial efforts also tend to be of a fluffier ...
The Intern (2015 film)
The Intern is a 2015 American comedy-drama film directed, written, and produced by Nancy Meyers.The film stars Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, and Rene Russo, with supporting performances from Anders Holm, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine, and Zack Pearlman.The plot follows a 70-year-old widower who becomes a senior intern at a fashion website, where he forms an unlikely friendship with the company ...
The Intern Official Movie Review
The Intern starring Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro, and Rene Russo is reviewed by Ben Mankiewicz (Turner Classic Movies), Matt Atchity (Rotten Tomatoes), Alon...
THE INTERN
THE INTERN stars Anne Hathaway as the successful, married owner of a new fashion retailer, who hires a 70-year-old retired, widowed manufacturing executive, played by Robert DeNiro. The INTERN has a moral worldview, where one character changes the others to show that doing the right thing, no matter what the consequences, should always be done ...
Intern, The
Both are lighthearted, enjoyable romps - funny enough not to be taken too seriously but with a hint of insight. In between, however, she was responsible for the messy The Holiday, a rambling, bloated production that resembles The Intern closely in tone and temperament. Without question, DeNiro and Hathaway elevate the material.
'In the Summers' review: Residente as a flawed divorced dad
Lacorazza's movie is one of gradations, the daughters in the later chapters subtly carrying the cumulative disappointment and stubborn love these woman still harbor for their flawed father.

Glenn Kenny

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Common Sense Selections for Podcasts

Parents' Guide to Podcasts

Social Networking for Teens

Gun-Free Action Game Apps

Reviews for AI Apps and Tools

Parents' Ultimate Guide to YouTube Kids

YouTube Kids Channels for Gamers

Parents' Ultimate Guide to Generative AI

Multicultural Books

YouTube Channels with Diverse Representations

Podcasts with Diverse Characters and Stories