![]() But ill-advised headgear is the least of Josh’s problems, and beyond the revelation that Jamie and Darby have gone backward from MP3s to vinyl LPs without ever having owned or played CDs lie more important discoveries. Yes, under Jamie’s influence Josh persuades himself to buy a neo-retro narrow-brimmed fedora (or perhaps a pork-pie) that makes him look kind of douchey, or at least like a dude in his 40s who’s trying way too hard. As Cornelia observes, the younger couple’s Bushwick apartment seems to have been furnished with stuff she and Josh threw away years ago. (Which will start to smell really bad really fast, trust me.) That would be Jamie and Darby, of course, who celebrated their wedding with a Slip’N Slide, don’t use Facebook (or at least claim not to), and play board games that had drifted out of fashion before Josh and his wife Cornelia (Watts) were in high school. ![]() ![]() But if I try to convince you that this movie presents a knotty exploration of the dialectic between sincerity and authenticity, or the shifting relationship between truth and fiction in an age where we’re no longer sure what those words mean, that doesn’t sound anywhere near as fun as a farce about some ridiculous hipster people who keep a pet chicken in their house. It’s a lot easier to convey the broad-brush satirical flourishes of “While We’re Young” than to explain the subtler and sometimes darker threads of meaning that run through it. Whether it identifies me as a discerning and independent thinker or just a crotchety old masochist is a highly subjective matter – and it’s exactly that sort of uncertainty that lies at the heart of “While We’re Young.” In this generous, finely honed and often extremely funny comedy of manners, Baumbach acknowledges the seductive power of such transitory generational markers, while urging us to look past them at deeper questions of human experience and cultural change. But that belief of mine is defensive and kind of dumb – not quite as dumb as “The Goonies” itself, but close. I laughed, because of course I think “The Goonies” is terrible and on some level that makes me feel superior to those who love it. When Josh, the struggling documentary filmmaker played by Stiller, gushes at his oldest friend (Adam Horovitz, aka Ad-Rock of the Beastie Boys) about how awesome Jamie and his wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried) are, he explains that they don’t distinguish between high and low they love “Citizen Kane” and they love “The Goonies.” Horovitz responds: “Since when is ‘The Goonies’ a good movie?”Īh, that’s the question! At last, an exploration of the “Goonies” gulf that divides the generations! Except maybe it’s not the question after all. All the songs on Cyndi Lauper’s debut album that aren’t “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”? Bingo. Every time I hear an MOR pop song from my own youth in a retail store, I consider whether it’s something Jamie would love, the way he loves “Eye of the Tiger” or “Caribbean Queen.” John Mellencamp’s “Small Town”? Possibly too “authentic.” Billy Joel’s “The Longest Time”? Confusingly doubly-retro (and also genuinely terrific, despite its often-irritating author). If my initial description of “While We’re Young” carries exactly the kind of ironic precision that would be employed by Jamie, the ambitious young filmmaker (and male half of the hipster couple) so marvelously portrayed by Adam Driver, that’s because this movie has the ability to burrow into your brain and affect your consciousness for weeks afterwards. It’s probably his most commercial film, and while that’s not why it’s his best, it’s also his best. ![]() “While We’re Young” is closer to conventional movie comedy than “Margot at the Wedding” or “Greenberg” or “The Squid and the Whale,” and for my money more substantial than “Frances Ha,” Baumbach’s Dunham-flavored collaboration with his partner, Greta Gerwig. I felt personally indicted by Noah Baumbach’s intergenerational marriage comedy “While We’re Young,” in which Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts play a middle-aged “creative class” couple who become captivated, for better and for worse, by a relentlessly energetic younger couple from the Brooklyn-centric production-consumption caste known by the catchall term “hipsters.” That’s certainly not a new sensation in Baumbach’s films – but this time I also felt forgiven, evidence of an important shift in his work.
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