The Intern
Starring Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway
Directed by Nancy Meyers
Those expecting legendary tough guy Robert De Niro to shed his character’s nice guy persona and go all Taxi Driver at the end of The Intern will be sorely disappointed. In fact, the actor has rarely been as saccharine as in his latest workplace comedy opposite Anne Hathaway.
De Niro stars as a widower, looking to keep busy, who enrolls in a senior internship program at on online fashion boutique run by Hathaway. She is reluctant at first about the prospect of a retiree following her around all day until his wisdom and experience begin to offer some much-needed business acumen. The film, from writer-director Nancy Meyers, eschews her typical mature romance-driven plots, as seen in Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated, for an apprentice/mentor story that examines the generation gap and gender equality.
Sure, Rene Russo offers some titillation as the office masseuse but The Intern seems bent on loftier themes and that proves to be its undoing. Buried under a veritable mountain of pedestrian gags, lazy writing and awful music cues, two convincing performances from De Niro and Hathaway are undermined until things turn poignant in the movie’s final third; however, it’s a slog to get there.
The most unfortunate misfire about the movie is how it squanders an extremely timely issue in favour of curiously flat characters and a screenplay that offers merely superficial charms. For all its potential, The Intern relies solely on the talents of its leads but doesn’t give them anything meaningful to do.
