Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach
**** (four stars)
"I'm losing my edge
I'm losing my edge
To the kids coming up from behind...
...But I'm losing my edge to to better looking people with better ideas and more talent
And they're actually really, really nice..."
-"Losing My Edge"
LCD Soundsystem
Aging is a most peculiar experience once you hit your 40's, or at least, it has been a most peculiar and often uneasy transition for me.
As I look backwards on my life, I can easily tell you that for myself, my late 20's felt to me to be like one long year spread out over quite possibly four years. The natural restlessness of the age notwithstanding, there just was this incessant need to not only try and discover a sense of purpose for my life but to also begin to feel comfortable within my own skin, all the while feeling as if I was not making any progress. Along with that, I had to begin dealing with those first realizations that maybe any fantasies I held about becoming a filmmaker or someone that carried some sense of public recognition was more than likely never going to happen. Or that if it did, it would occur in a way that felt comfortable to my own sense of integrity as the horror stories of the big, bad real world in cinema, publishing and the like only showed me that my skin is just too thin for industries that are famously cutthroat. Whatever happened would happen but it would have to be organic and on my own terms, therefore ensuring that wherever I found myself, it would felt right to my spirit.
By the time I turned 30, I actually felt comfortable. I was comfortable within my own skin as if the number of my age felt just right with who I felt myself to be internally. By this stage of my life, certain avenues had begun falling into place. I was married, had begun my career as a teacher, and furthermore, forced myself to become a writer and cherish the title not through any sense of attaining public recognition but finding satisfaction with the artistic process itself. If I was going to call myself writer, then just get down to it and write! Of course, I continued to house fantasies of fame and glory (and I guess I still do) but again, between the ages of 30-34, it all felt as if I had finally arrived within my own life.
And then, I turned 35.
35 was the first time in my life when I felt that the numerical value of my age did not represent me whatsoever. People began to refer to me as "Sir," which felt like a knife in the heart as well as the back for could these young people not see that I was obviously one of them? I still wore my ever present baseball cap. I still frequented the local record stores, movie theaters and was up on (then) current pop culture. Sure I had some gray hairs sprouting in my goatee but hey, those were earned weren't they? It didn't mean that I was necessarily getting old, did it? Older, certainly. But not old.
35 rapidly found itself at 40, 42 and now 46 and with each year, and regardless of how thankful I am to still be a part of this existence, the numbers have troubled me more than ever and almost to the point where I really don't even wish to acknowledge how old I am anymore. While I still wear my baseball cap and frequent the very few record stores that remain, I am not as up to the minute knowledgeable about current pop culture and I am shocked to discover that in many cases, I just don't care anymore, partially because I don't see the artistic value as compared to the pop culture that formulated me and partially because, I just can't keep up with it all. I don't own a smart phone. I don't text. I don't utilize Twitter and I do harbor an inherent distrust of some aspects of advancing technology and the ever encroaching and less private world of social media, especially for the generations behind me.and what it may mean for our collective future. And furthermore, the gray in my goatee has nearly taken over. What is happening to me?
All of those emotions sit at the deeply perceptive core of Writer/Director Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young," his seventh feature film and as far as I am concerned, it is the very best film he has released in the 10 years since his extraordinary family drama "The Squid And The Whale" (2005). I have to first express to you that I was just about ready to give up on Mr. Baumbach as the films he has released since "The Squid And The Whale" have only disappointed me to varying degrees. Where "Margot At The Wedding" (2007) was just an ugly escapade that did not pay off whatsoever, his more recent and critically acclaimed features "Greenberg" (2010) and "Frances Ha" (2012) to me felt to be increasingly smug, self-congratulatory and painfully plastic excursions that didn't feel to constructed out of anything seemingly honest, therefore making themselves to be nothing more than hipster fabrications of real life.
By contrast, "While We're Young" is piercing and poignant, uncharacteristically warm (for Baumbach) yet righteously and rightfully bitter and never once strikes one false note. It felt as if Baumbach had taken some of the thematic frameworks of "Greenberg," "Frances Ha" and even his debut feature "Kicking And Screaming" (1995) and fashioned what just may be his most complete screenplay and therefore, his most multi-layered film to date as he takes us through an odyssey of middle age ennui, fear and confusion as it clashes against young adult ambition plus also functioning as a smart social commentary and screwball romantic comedy which even has ample space to house a central mystery and even some very funny scatological humor. We have a few weeks before the behemoths of the Summer Movie season take over the theater screens so, I do indeed happily urge you to head out for this film, even if it does make you look uncomfortably at yourself.
"While We're Young" stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as Josh and Cornelia Srebnick, a New York based documentary filmmaker and his wife, a documentary film producer and the daughter of legendary documentarian Leslie Breitbart (a most welcome return from Charles Grodin). Josh and Cornelia, now in their mid-40's, are struggling with the choices, twists and turns their lives have taken over the course of their relationship and while still madly in love, they have found themselves stuck in a rut. After one completed and vastly underseen documentary film, Josh has been ensconced in the tedium of creating a follow-up feature...for 10 years. The couple's best friends, Marina (Maria Dizzia) and Fletcher (Beastie Boys' Adam Horovitz in a fine, relaxed performance), also in their mid-40's, have now become first time parents, making Josh and Cornelia feel alienated and unfulfilled as they are childless due to two past miscarriages.
Feeling adrift, it is almost a miracle for Josh and Cornelia as they meet and build a hearty friendship with Jamie (a terrific Adam Driver) and Darby (the subtle and strong Amanda Seyfried), a married couple in their mid 20's. Jamie and Darby are charming, open, and eager individuals who befriend Josh and Cornelia graciously. They house vast music collections upon vinyl, watch VHS cassettes, invite the older couple to block parties and seemingly hang onto every one of Josh's self-perceived pearls of wisdom. Additionally, as Darby makes her own ice cream, which she is in the process of selling. and Jamie is an aspiring documentary filmmaker and fan of Josh's past work, Josh and Cornelia are not only swept away by the seemingly free-spirited couple, they each witness doors into their own pasts and they chart their respective futures.
Soon, Cornelia is taking hip-hop dance classes with Darby, Josh adopts to wearing pork pie hats and wingtip shoes to emulate his own youth as well as the youthful confidence Jaime represents, and they both cast off their oldest friends in pursuit of this virtual fountain of youth. But are the two couples as compatible as they seem or even wish to be, especially as the ideals of two generations may not be as in sync as hoped?
Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young" is a perfect candidate to exist as a companion piece to Writer/Director Judd Apatow's "This Is 40" (2012), as Baumbach has crafted an experience that is perfectly in tune with both of the generations it is representing, as well as the emotions and motivations contained with the characters. With "France Ha," I just felt as if every single moment within that film from characters, motivations, performances and even dialogue all existed within sets of invisible quotation marks. With "While We're Young," those feelings were entirely non-existent. Baumbach has crafted a wise, very funny and often deeply acerbic film, filled with a vibrant and literary wit that fuels a collective of characters that are instantly recognizable, especially as the features within these characters are remarkably and again, uncomfortably like our own.
I loved how Baumbach did not make any wide-sweeping generalities about the two different generations depicted in the film and in fact, he sort of upended them. Yes, there is a terrific montage sequence early in the film which depicts the mid-40's Josh and Cornelia are more socially isolated and attached to technology while the mid 20's Jamie and Darby are more outgoing and social. Where Josh exercises alone with earbuds in place inside of a health club, Jamie plays basketball with friends on outdoor public courts. You get the picture. But soon, Baumbach slowly and smartly complicates and deepens matters, especially once we arrive at sequences where the core moral values inside of the characters become revealed, thus making "While We're Young" work as a decidedly pointed social commentary.
Noah Baumbach asks extremely difficult questions for each generation as well as having the characters perform the same tasks of themselves. With regards to the 40's, as represented by both Josh and Cornelia, we are seeing two people dealing with issues of relevancy and mortality. On a more immediate level, Josh and Cornelia are coiled inside of an existential crisis where they are each wondering if they, and the ideals with which they have formulated themselves, have become obsolete, therefore fading each of them into obscurity. Have they actually become the very people society thinks they should be by this time in their lives? Or even more probing, what Josh and Cornelia perceive society wants for them to have achieved. Josh and Cornelia are each faced with questions of what the true definition of success actually means, especially as Cornelia feels societal pressure with not being a Mother and Josh is forever engulfed with his cerebral documentary that may never get finished.
As their relationships with Jamie and Darby grow closer and more intertwined, we also gather the sense that as Josh and Cornelia look at their new friends, they are not only seeing versions of themselves in their respective 20's but also the perceptions they have held of each other, making Josh and Cornelia begin to each resent the other for not becoming who they felt they should have become.
With regards to the 20's, as represented by Jamie and Darby, what begins as something more free wheeling and carefree ultimately reveals itself as being much sharper than Josh and Cornelia have begun to realize. Especially, with Jaime, we have characters who are much more opportunistic, cunning, savvy, and duplicitous than first perceived plus the added bonus of being industrious and uniquely talented. Once Josh and Jaime become friends, it is a relationship where Josh, at first, feels charmed and even disarmed by Jaime's admiration and openness. And the relationship then progresses from one that Josh (again) perceives as being "Mentor/Protege" to one where they become rivals and creative competitors, to the point, where Josh is supremely unnerved by Jaime's rapidly approaching footsteps. In fact, Jaime's entire aesthetic is cloaked inside of a "means to and end" quality that sets itself up for late film confrontations between himself and Josh, which even further finds itself inside of a generational battle of ethics and even levels of narcissism.
With "While Were Young," Noah Baumbach is asking us, from generation to generation (and in this case, I would suppose "Generation X" and the "Millennials"), what are the ideals that shape us? What are the morals that have we grown up with that helps to formulate how we wish to navigate the world? More specifically, when you have a generation, unlike my own, where so much of their lives have been documented and technology has become the tool to continue an unhealthy level of narcissism, what does that mean for the future? Near the opening of the film, as Josh is giving a lecture, he expresses that documentaries should not only be about the subject at hand but also a personal statement about the filmmaker. Yet, by film's end, he questions what a documentary even is anymore to a generation that is constantly filming themselves. The film's final image, which of course, I will not reveal, is a killer, as Baumbach delivers an image that made me feel the impending and possibly inevitable decay of our societal morality and the effect was surprisingly chilling and profoundly effective.
Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are pitch perfect and completely convincing and winning as our middle aged heroes. Stiller, in particular, has really found himself to existing as the perfect conduit for Baumbach's parables, as they allow him ample room to stretch his dramatic muscles while still giving him considerable space to demonstrate his unquestionable comedic skills and impish subversiveness.
And yet, how strange it was to see the lines of age slowly embedded into Stiller's face as well as Naomi Watts', who remains as lovely as ever but even still, it is happening. But, what of Adam Horovitz, the former Beastie Boy who is now adorned with not only the same lines of age but a mop of hair that is completely gray? Are they, and therefore are we all really getting older like this? Again, this is happening. It's really happening.
"We're old men," Horovitz as his character Fletcher exclaims with a bemused expression to Stiller's Josh. Maybe so and therefore I may need to begin facing a certain reality. And yet, I can and I can't. Noah Baumbach's "While We're Young" taps so specifically into this quandary that it is truly a surprise that the film is as enormously entertaining as it is.
While I'm not sure if "While We're Young" will end up as one of the best films of 2015, I am so thrilled that it is Noah Bambach's best film in many years. Welcome back, Mr. Baumbach. Take off your coat and stay a while.
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