Skip to main content

While we're young - movie review

I did not know who Noah Baumbach was till I saw this film that he directed.  Starring Ben Stiller (honestly I give him cred because of his dad Jerry Stiller in Seinfeld whom I loved) and Naomi Watts (whom I quite like as an actor) play the role of 40 something NY couple that is longing for a change in their childless existence. 

The movie is similar to some others I have seen in the serious comedy /satire genre with what Hollywood or movie watching public might consider B or C grade acting talent (take Albert Brooks or Paul Rudd in 'This is 40').

The plot revolves around the 40ish couple crossing paths with a 20ish hippy pair who live a very energetic and ad hoc life.  From the stereotype of making their own food (and ice cream) even in NY, to their whole Bohemian chic lifestyle, the older couple gets enamored to the point that they emulate them in their own life.  From taking hip hop lessons to taking wild hikes in the middle of the night wearing attire unfit for an aging body these two take their new found friends into their personal space.  For a while it appears to give them a spiritual high, the arthritis in Ben's back notwithstanding.

Very soon Stiller whose character is a movie /documentary director without recent success starts helping the younger man with his own film project that goes on to be celebrated at a gala only to find that the younger man has crossed a moral boundary in what is authentic film making and been deceitful in their so called friendship.  Stiller in the end concedes that the younger couple are not to be hated for their ways but that there are many shades of what makes the planet go round.

You live and let live.  Be true to who you are as an individual (or couple).
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

But What If We're Wrong?

I attempted to read this book by author Chuck Klosterman backward to forward but it started hurting my brain so I decided to stop and do it like any other publication in the English language.  Start from page 1 and move to the right. Witty, caustic and thought provoking this is a book you want to read if you believe that the status quo might, just might be wrong. At times bordering on being contrarian about most things around us it tries to zero in on the notion of what makes anything believable and certain in our minds.  The fact that there is a fact itself is ironic.  Something analogous to the idea that you can never predict the future because there is no future. Many books and movies have tried to play on this concept - best that I recollect (I think I am) was 'The Truman Show'.  This book by Klosterman attempts to provoke the reader to at least contemplate that what they think they know may be wrong. He uses examples like concept of gravity, and how it ...
2 comments
Read more

You are important to us

Followed by piano music.   Followed by 'we are experiencing heavier than usual call volume'.  Sounds macabre like bleeding during menstruation or after a ghastly attack with a weapon on a hemophiliac.  Sorry Mrs. Johnson but it appears little Gertrude here has been bleeding heavier than usual what with her night time activities competing with the woodchucks in your neighborhood. Some services even go as far as to pick a random day to say - 'if you were to call us during the Chinese lunar month when the moon is axiomatically hugging the polar star with Jupiter intravenous when call volume is light'.  Well I will be damned.  I thought  I had checked with my astrologer before I placed this well focused call but  I guess this is what you get for listening to a quack. Umph! I am not sure which marketing genius came up with this personal touch concept of informing the caller that you are really a jackass for actually calling the customer serv...
Post a Comment
Read more

Of Jims and Johns

Here is another essay on the subject of first names. As in birth names. Or names provided to an offspring at birth. While the developed world tends to shy away from the exotic like Refrigerator or Coca Cola for their new production there is a plethora of Jims and Johns and Bobs or Robs. Speaking of which I do not think there is a categoric decision point at the time of birth if a child will be hereafter called as Bob. I mean have not yet met a toddler called Bob or Rob for that matter. At some point though the parental instinct to mouth out multiple syllables runs out and they switch from calling the crawler Robert to simply Robbie to Rob. Now speaking of - it is strange that the name sounds like something you would not want Rob to do - i.e. Rob anyone. Then why call someone that? After all Rob Peter to Pay Paul is not exactly a maxim to live a young life? Is it? Perhaps Peter or Paul might want to have a say in it? Then there is this matter of going to the John. Why degrad...
2 comments
Read more