There is a moment in Nancy Myers’ excellent 2015 film The Intern when the main character, Jules Ostin, complains about a man who has accused her of running a “chick-site.” Played with winning smarts and verve by Anne Hathaway, Jules is the powerhouse CEO of The Fit, a start-up on-line fashion company which she founded and which is doing gangbuster business out of its Brooklyn headquarters. This is a very telling moment in the narrative, not only because it reveals so much about Jules’s character—i.e., that she hates being pre-judged by chauvinistic men—but also because it gets at some larger aspect of the film as a whole.
When critics, and especially male critics, put the prefix “chick-” before something, what they are really saying is that the thing in question has been cynically designed to appeal to women. When applied to films or books, the term means that the work is guilty of a specific kind of sentimentality. That is, it contains tropes and cliches, which women are (supposedly) prone to react to, regardless of whether they work dramatically or not. Puppy dogs. Cute kids. Men crying. Women crying. Break-up scenes. Makeup scenes. The viewer’s/reader’s emotional reaction is not earned. It’s pre-programmed.
Of course, it goes without saying that men are just as susceptible to sentimentality as women. That’s why so many male-focused “action” movies always have some kind of buddy-aspect (a “bromance”), as well as the hero’s beautiful but angry girl-friend who just doesn’t get his need to fight evil. But getting back to The intern, this moment struck me as profound because many critics accused the movie, itself, of being a “chick-flick.” Not in so many words perhaps, but the accusation was there nonetheless.
There are, indeed, moments of sentimentality in The intern, especially toward the end. And, yes, the movie sometimes feels like a chick-flick. But it’s much more than that. It is, in fact, one of my favorite movies of the last ten years or so. It’s also one of the best, most complex performances Robert De Niro has given in decades.
Part of my appreciation for the film can probably be chalked up to my own personal history. When I first watched it on DVD some years ago, I had, like the older protagonist Ben in the movie, been working for a trendy software consulting company (based out of India, in my case). Many of my workmates were so-called millennials, with very different backgrounds than my own, and I came to have a great appreciation and admiration for their talents and concerns. And, like Ben, I often found them exasperating.
So, I was probably destined to enjoy a story about a 70-year-old retired corporate soldier, Ben, who takes a job as an intern at The Fit. Obviously, Ben has a lot to learn about the internet and modern technology from his 20-something workmates, but they have even more to learn from him about the work ethic, self-discipline, and good old-fashioned level-headedness. Surprisingly, many of the film’s best jokes have to do with Ben showing his very young male colleagues how to….well…be a man. That is, how to respect women, how to respect themselves, and how to behave with dignity and honor.
But the heart of the film, naturally, has to do with Ben’s relationship with Jules. When he finds himself assigned to work for her directly as her intern, he is up for the challenge. Jules however sees the whole matter as an enormous pain in the ass, not to mention elder abuse. (She is, ironically, guilty of her own brand of prejudice—ageism.) Of course, Ben soon wins her over with his quiet confidence, shrewd intellect, and limitless wisdom on matters both corporate and personal. (Not to mention his burglary skills.)
One of my favorite scenes is when Jules is working late and Ben, being an old school company man, refuses to go home until the boss does. The two workaholics share a pizza, and Ben prevails that he worked in the very same building where the fit has its headquarters for forty years. Jules is understandably impressed and even a little moved. One senses that this might be the first time that she has contemplated what an entire lifetime in business might look like, and where she might end up. The scene really works because of the way de Niro gradually reveals this information to her. He brilliantly conveys how much admiration—and even love, of a sort—that Ben feels for her. After all, she’s a lot like him. She is him—the modern version of him. A driven entrepreneur and gifted business person who will do anything to make her vision a reality.
In some ways, The Intern, is nothing less than a celebration of old school capitalism. What capitalism, at its best, can be, and what it can do for both individuals and communities. Jules’s company, The Fit, is a community of hard-working, like-minded people, all doing their best for a shared goal. Never mind the fact that most of them are millennials. The ideal of American Business remains the same.
More importantly, though, The Intern is just a damned funny movie. The acting is uniformly excellent from both young and old players. Hathaway, in particular, radiates so much old-Hollywood grit and charm that she sometimes feels like the new Katherine Hepburn.
The Intern is streaming right now on Netflix. Check it out….
Ash Clifton, Writer 