After so many years in service its time for Ben to put a halt but retirement doesn't seem as intriguing as suspected until the big chance to become an intern at an online fashion site ran by Jules Ostin.
This earnest, effusive haut-bourgeois fantasy, by the writer and director Nancy Meyers, runs roughshod over rational skepticism with the force of her life experience.
Thanks largely to performances by De Niro and Hathaway, The Intern is a gentle, enjoyable fantasy-and certainly Meyers's best film in more than a decade.
The Intern has a broader appeal with a cross-generation story staring Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro, but it retains Meyer's warm tone, upper-middle setting and dedication to immaculately decorated homes.
There's not much here story-wise. But when Meyers wants to write an involving scene with characters thinking and feeling the way humans think and feel, you want to applaud.
The Intern degenerates into a series of monologues about ambition and relationships and having it all. As the speeches pile up, our goodwill dissipates, and so does the film's magic.
In keeping everything so polite, The Intern, while being a pleasant and watchable movie, is also entirely ephemeral. Maybe that's why, like Meyers' other films, The Intern will likely be so re-watchable, too.
Easygoing, likeable and perhaps a little too safe, The Intern is not Meyers' best work to date but, it's reliable and entertaining. What more do you need?
There's something powerful in that, in the simple fact that The Intern is so sympathetic to its older character-so resolutely on the side of a person who might, in other contexts, be dismissed or ignored or, as is so often the case, invisible.
