Film Review: "The Intern" a generation-chasm comedy

There'd be a lot less strife and starvation, disease and dread, if Nancy Meyers ruled the world. In her string of hit rom-coms and remakes (What Women Want, Father of the Bride, Something's Gotta Give, It's Complicated), the plucky writer and director has fashioned an alternative universe where, yes, couples fight, cheat, and lie, parents angst over their children, people have setbacks and heart attacks, there are deaths and disappointments, but in the end, everything works out just fine, thanks very much.

So, here comes The Intern, Meyers' impossibly charming generation-gap comedy - make that generation-chasm comedy - in which Anne Hathaway is an e-commerce millennial with a booming start-up, and Robert De Niro is a retiree, a widower, looking to fill the hole in his life. When Hathaway's Jules Ostin - who runs a web-based clothing company with more than 200 employees scurrying around in spiffy Brooklyn digs - signs off on a community-outreach program to bring senior citizens onboard, De Niro's Ben Whittaker applies for the job. (Is it a "job," or an unpaid gig exploiting an eager workforce? The issue is left blithely unaddressed.)

"I'm not good with old people," Jules tells her business partner, trying to get the 70-year-old who has shown up in a jacket and tie reassigned to one of her underlings. But, no, it would be good PR for Jules to have Ben as her intern, even if she plans to go about her days as if he weren't there.

Of course, by the time various crises (zoom links that crash, a bedbug infestation) come around, Ben has proved himself indispensable. His old-school business acumen may be corny, but he makes sense. His considerable experience in life comes in handy, too. He's efficient, reliable, and knows the best routes through the city to get Jules to her meetings on time.

And did we say that Jules is not only a workaholic CEO, but a wife and mother, too? Her husband (Anders Holm) is a stay-at-home dad who's beginning to feel like he's being taken for granted. Dark clouds of disharmony scud across the marital skies.

Hathaway plays things snappy and assertive, barking orders as she pedals across her vast headquarters on a bike - with a coffee cup holder on the handle bars and an assistant trotting alongside. She's the quintessential thirtysomething success story, but that doesn't mean she's not capable of breaking down in tears. Just you wait.

De Niro, jaunty and reserved at the same time, hasn't been this good in ages. Ben's an upbeat and adaptable septuagenarian, bonding with his fellow interns (he could be their granddad), befriending his coworkers and Jules' daughter, too. He turns to mush watching Singin' in the Rain, and he hits it off with the company's in-house masseuse, Fiona (Rene Russo). Travis Bickle, this guy is not.

The Intern piles on the drama - corporate intrigue, domestic unrest, a burglary necessitated by an errant email - but it's not really drama at all. Just Meyers working her magic, and her audience, until we've been reduced to mush, too, like Ben watching Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds dancing on the backlot.

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@Steven_Rea

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Directed by Nancy Meyers. With

Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro,

Rene Russo, Anders Holm.

Distributed by Warner Bros.

Running time: 2 hours, 1 min.

Parent's guide: PG-13 (profanity, adult themes).

Playing at: Area theaters.EndText