{"id":151399,"date":"2015-03-22T21:05:10","date_gmt":"2015-03-23T04:05:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/?p=151399"},"modified":"2015-03-18T19:57:09","modified_gmt":"2015-03-19T02:57:09","slug":"while-we-were-young-movie-review","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.shockya.com\/news\/2015\/03\/22\/while-we-were-young-movie-review\/","title":{"rendered":"While We&#8217;re Young Movie Review"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>WHILE WE WERE YOUNG<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>A24<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes.<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Grade: B+<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Director: Noah Baumbach<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Screenwriter:\u00a0 Noah Baumbach<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Cast:\u00a0 Ben Stiller Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Grodin, Adam Horovitz<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Screened at: Dolby88, NYC, 3\/18\/15<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Opens:\u00a0 March 27, 2015<\/strong><\/p>\n<p>Since everyone thinks that happiness is the most important thing in life, sociologists have a field day cashing in with self-help books on how to achieve this pleasant state.\u00a0 Some also analyze the state of happiness in the U.S. and the world, an epidemiological study, if you will. The latest theory is that the happiest times in our lives are our early twenties when we are full of beans, and, strangely, our seventies, when we no longer crave the kinds of pleasures so eagerly sought by the younger.\u00a0 The least happy years are those in the middle age of thirties and forties, because we reap disappointments with goals we will never meet and have to handle the stress of keeping our jobs, paying off the mortgages, and getting our kids through college.\u00a0 Noah Baumbach is the ideal filmmaker to reach out for stories about the different age groups, given his autobiographical \u201cThe Squid and the Whale\u201d about two young boys dealing with their parents\u2019 divorce in the 1980s and \u201cFrances Ha\u201d about a dancer who throws herself into her dreams though there\u2019s little chance of realizing them.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhile We&#8217;re Young\u201d juxtaposes two couples, Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) in their forties and their friendship with a pair in their twenties, Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), with an honorable mention given to Josh\u2019s well-to-do father-in-law, Leslie (Charles Grodin), a celebrated documentarian.\u00a0 It\u2019s no coincidence that given Leslie\u2019s fame, Josh would himself try his skill writing and filming docs, though he has been working on a single, intellectual and static film for the past ten years and has been unable to get Leslie\u2019s financing given his status as a loser.<\/p>\n<p>When Josh and Cornelia, who had tried to have a baby but ended up with miscarriages and have just about lost their passion for each other, have the good\u00a0 fortune to meet Jamie and Darby who, beyond expectations want to nurture a friendship with the older folks, the older couples\u2019 marriage becomes rejuvenated as Jamie, a hipster living in Brooklyn (where else?) molds the older people into hipsters with the chic hat, a hallucinogenic Ayahuasca ceremony with a Peruvian shaman, and a seeming adoration by these young people of Josh\u2019s talent.\u00a0 Since things are seldom what they seem, writer-director Baumbach introduces a major twist three-quarters of the way into the story, and suddenly it all makes sense.<\/p>\n<p>Baumbach milks considerable comedy from his latest celluloid venture, the physical comedy centering on the Ayahuasca ceremony when all participants carry buckets to release the impurities\u2014throwing up vigorously.\u00a0 At the same time, however, Baumbach\u2019s true talent as a writer comes through with the insights he develops about relationships between couples of different generations, one irony occurring when Josh and Cornelia are into their Netflix account and iPads while young Jamie and Darby are listening to a wide range of music on vinyl, with no hierarchical emphasis on pop vs. classical. \u201cTheir apartment is full of things we threw out,\u201d exclaims the surprised Josh to his wife.<\/p>\n<p>This is a solidly written dramedy, miles from the \u201cpleasures\u201d of TV sitcoms like \u201cMike and Molly\u201d which require that the audience laugh at least three times a minute in order to declare a tale to be a comedy.\u00a0 Ben Stiller is funny without even trying to be; in other words this is not forced humor such as he evoked in \u201cNight at the Museum.\u201d\u00a0 He has genuine chemistry with Naomi Watts particularly when compared with that of Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried, whose times together deliberately indicate that something is missing between them.\u00a0 Charles Grodin, a seriously underused actor, does a terrific job understating his own fame, making his character the opposite of Driver\u2019s. All in all, a nicely written, well acted, and fast-paced project graced with insights about duplicity, ambition, talent, and passion.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Rated R.\u00a0 94 minutes.\u00a0 \u00a9 Harvey Karten, Member, New York Film Critics Online<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><strong>Story \u2013 B+<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Acting \u2013 B+<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Technical \u2013 B<\/strong><br \/>\n<strong>Overall \u2013 B+<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>WHILE WE WERE YOUNG A24 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. Databased on Rotten Tomatoes. Grade: B+ Director: Noah Baumbach Screenwriter:\u00a0 Noah Baumbach Cast:\u00a0 Ben Stiller Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Grodin, Adam Horovitz Screened at: Dolby88, NYC, 3\/18\/15 Opens:\u00a0 March 27, 2015 Since everyone thinks that happiness is the most important thing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":37,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"apple_news_api_created_at":"","apple_news_api_id":"","apple_news_api_modified_at":"","apple_news_api_revision":"","apple_news_api_share_url":"","apple_news_cover_media_provider":"image","apple_news_coverimage":0,"apple_news_coverimage_caption":"","apple_news_cover_video_id":0,"apple_news_cover_video_url":"","apple_news_cover_embedwebvideo_url":"","apple_news_is_hidden":"","apple_news_is_paid":"","apple_news_is_preview":"","apple_news_is_sponsored":"","apple_news_maturity_rating":"","apple_news_metadata":"\"\"","apple_news_pullquote":"","apple_news_pullquote_position":"","apple_news_slug":"","apple_news_sections":[],"apple_news_suppress_video_url":false,"apple_news_use_image_component":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8,4],"tags":[28792,6212,4482,792,13792],"class_list":["post-151399","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-movies","category-reviews","tag-adam-driver","tag-amanda-seyfried","tag-ben-stiller","tag-naomi-watts","tag-while-were-young"],"apple_news_notices":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>While We&#039;re Young Movie Review<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"WHILE WE WERE YOUNG A24 Reviewed by: Harvey Karten for Shockya. 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