Starring: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Amanda Seyfried, Adam Driver
While We're Young
Director: Noah Baumbach
Rating: 4/5
Noah Baumbach was last seen in the director's chair in 2013 with Frances Ha, this week he is back with his new comedy/drama While We're Young.
Baumbach has penned the screenplay as well as being in the director's chair, while he reunites with actor Ben Stiller for the first time since Greenberg.
Stiller and Watts are Josh and Cornelia Srebnick, happily married middle-aged members of New York's creative class. Josh labours over the umpteenth edit of his cerebral new film, it's clear that he has hit a dry patch and that something is still missing. Enter Jamie and Darby (Driver and Seyfried) a free-spirited young couple, who are spontaneous and untethered, ready to drop everything in pursuit of their next passion.
For Josh, it's as if a door has opened back to his youth - or a youth he wishes he once had. It's not long before the restless forty-somethings, Josh and Cornelia, throw aside friends their own age to trail after these young hipsters who seem so plugged in, so uninhibited, so Brooklyn cool.
Baumbach is a director that is great at exploring relationships within films, and that is exactly what he has done with While We're Young. He has also including the interesting element of generational envy, which is something that I really enjoyed.
As well as being a funny and witty comedy, there is also some terrific character development throughout the film - Josh being one of the interesting characters in the movie. He is a man who is tired of living in the shadow of his father in law and feels like he is perhaps a little lost in his life.
Stiller gives a terrific central performance and he and Watts make a great - and very funny couple. There is something incredibly real about them, that you cannot help connect with them and understand why they want to recapture their youth.
Adam Driver is one of the most exciting young actors around - he really does have a very busy 2015 ahead of him - and he is on top comedy for in While We're Young.
However, one of the major drawback was the female character were perhaps not as well developed or explored as their male counterparts - which is a major shame.
Overall, I think While We're Young is one of Baumbach's best - and possibly most funny movies - as three different generations collide. Not only does Baumbach show the differences between them, but also what they can learn from each other.
Baumbach has always been a filmmaker that drives character and story and he has done the same with While We're Young, resulting in a rich and funny script and some interesting characters to fill it.
