Movie Review - The Intern

The Intern (2015)

Starring Robert DeNiro, Anne Hathaway, Rene Russo, Anders Holm, JoJo Kushner, Andrew Rannells, Zach Pearlman, Christina Scherer, and Adam DeVine

Directed by Nancy Meyers

As part of an outreach initiative, Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway), CEO of the popular fashion e-commerce website About the Fit, creates an internship program to bring in senior citizens to counter the youthful vibe of the workplace.  Recent widower Ben (Robert DeNiro) applies and earns an internship as Jules's assistant.  Despite her initial reticence, Jules soon finds Ben's demeanor and attitude to be a comforting and soothing aspect to her hectic and crazy life as she attempts to balance her work life with her home life being a wife to Matt (Anders Holm) and mother to young Paige (JoJo Kushner).

Writer-director Nancy Meyers' The Intern is full of clichés and silly side characters who bear no import to the overarching storyline, but at the center of the film is Robert DeNiro and Anne Hathaway who create a chemistry-filled dynamic that is irresistibly charming.  Color me surprised, but there is humor and heart in the father-daughter, mentor-mentee relationship that Meyers creates and DeNiro and Hathaway imbue.  While it's obvious where the seasoned, elderly Ben is going to lead the fresh, younger Jules from the very outset of the film, we in the audience don't really mind because of the interaction between the two characters and actors.

While the secondary characters are amusing in their own right, the film doesn't really know what to do with them.  Sure, they play into certain scenes during which the relationship between Jules and Ben flourishes, but in the end they can't help but feel superfluous.  Still, because of the dynamic between the two leads, The Intern manages to be a better, more watchable film than it probably deserves to be, so kudos to both DeNiro and Hathaway for achieving this.

The RyMickey Rating:  B-