![]() In fact, the film hands out some winning Reality Bytes to this twosome and anyone who pines for their younger days. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts, however, hilariously fall into this trap in an on-the-nose film that's deeper and more convoluted than at first glance. Peter Pan never grew up, but - if he did - he hopefully wouldn't emulate Brooklyn hipsters. Hitting Generation X right in their Millennials, Noah Baumbach's latest comedy hilariously asks Y of Middle Age as it winningly straddles the generational divide. Overall, while not all that profound, Baumbach proves to be an excellent story-teller and fascinating artist. The film's resolution (its final moments, not the genius send-up of "the great detective's reveal") is far too pat for my tastes, but that doesn't besmirch the fact that so much of what came before hit all the right notes. It's clear that he wants to explore the former group of themes and occasionally digress into pedantry about the nature of art in documentary films, but While We're Young's primary strength is that it avoids too much didacticism.īen Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, and Amanda Seyfried all give excellent performances, but it's Stiller who most clearly understands Baumbach's unique blending of character development and thematic exploration, and his performance is the most honed - probably the result of his experience in other Baumbach films. Writer/director Noah Baumbach fashions a simple but affecting story contrasting youth and mortality, balanced with a rather pedestrian story about the making of a documentary. A middle-aged couple befriends a younger couple and embarks on a documentary project.
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