Sunday, May 29, 2016

While We're Young

This was hilarious, but I am quite sure that it was only hilarious to a very niche demographic: 40-something, childless couples. Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are said couple and find all their friends are becoming "lost" to their kids. So they befriend some 20-something hipsters. Just this setup allows for the film to skewer all the stereotypes around conflict between children/childless and middle age/millennials. But I think those with kids will only find it moderately funny and millennial/hipsters will say "Huh. I guess I can see the humor there". The main hipster/new friend is Adam Driver who happens to be a filmmaker (same as Stiller) and turns out to be a manipulative narcissist. The not-so-subtle message is that most millennial/hipsters are also manipulative narcissists and the 40-somethings are really better all around with their own kind (and with kids).  I don't really agree with this message, and this might be what prevented the film from being great. It could have been funny *and* had a good message.
4 stars (out of 5)

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