Above: Naomi Watts and Ben Stiller as suffering (and insufferable) Baumbach creations. Photo ©A24 Films.
What to say of “While We’re
Young”? To begin with, it is a plainly-told
dramedy of manners; it casts its sneering spotlight on preening, philosophizing
New Yorkers; and it glances at the world (read: twenty-first century America)
with a snarl that tastes about as pleasant as unrefrigerated grapefruit
juice. It is, in other words, a typical Noah
Baumbach movie.
Twice, Mr. Baumbach has co-written movies with Wes
Anderson (namely “Fantastic Mr. Fox” and “The Life Aquatic”), seeming at ease
on that filmmaker’s genial Ferris wheel of quirk. But directing solo, Mr. Baumbach is a creator
of astonishingly bitter visions. Had
another auteur made “The Squid and the Whale,” divorcee Bernard Berkman (Jeff
Daniels) might have re-earned his place next his sons and his wife; Mr.
Baumbach’s idea of closure was to abandon the guy in a hospital bed.
“While We’re Young” is not quite so bitter. It’s about a meandering Manhattan couple,
Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts), both of whom go gaga-giddy over the
smirking youngsters Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfriend). None of these people transcend their
archetypal trappings; as Josh waxes rhapsodic about Jamie and Darby, it becomes
clear that he is little more than a mouthpiece for Mr. Baumbach to belt out his
thoughts on the proverbial “younger generation.” “They’re so engaged!” Josh crows. You don’t say.
And what are Jamie and Darby engaged with? Movies, movies, movies. Oh sure, Darby makes ice cream (“She makes
ice cream!” Josh helpfully informs us), but their twin energies beam towards
Jamie’s documentarian aspirations. Josh directs
documentaries too, and it doesn’t take too many reels for him to suspect that
Jamie might be more interested in networking than making a meaningful
connection. But so infectious is Jamie’s
joie de vivre (Mr. Driver’s smile is as seductive as it is self-satisfied) that
it takes awhile for the truth to stick.
Throughout these proceedings, Mr. Baumbach avoids the
poetically eye-catching. Not a single
image in “While We’re Young” could be called beautiful and that’s exactly the
point—beauty might have swayed us emotionally, forcing us to root for Josh and
Cornelia, rather than simply observing and beholding them in their folly.
Fair enough. That
said, there’s something borderline nauseating about this detached manner of
filmmaking; how can a movie truly be transcendent if it isn’t suffused with
some kind of love? True, you can
compensate by committing to the deranged power of a bad-people-do-worse-things
spectacle (as Martin Scorsese did with lubricated bravado with “The Wolf of
Wall Street”), but Mr. Baumbach doesn’t have the zest (or the heart) for such a
venture.
Still, how can you afford to miss “While We’re
Young”? After all, like Alex Garland’s
“Ex Machina,” it is a film that speaks to our moment—to the fashions and
obsessions that empower and plague us (when Josh says he used to be skeptical
of Facebook but now finds it to be “a useful tool,” he eerily encapsulates our acceptance
of technological omnipotence). And at
times, the film is transcendent. A
shamanistic “ayahuasca” ceremony that Josh and company attend may be absurd,
but in all its messiness, it’s kind of inspiring. Everyone vomits, dresses in white and sprawls
on the ground; you can’t help feeling that such absurdity is healthy.
That makes it all the more painful that Josh and Jamie’s
relationship implodes. As “While We’re
Young” rumbles toward its final scene, the tension capsizes and the drama of
young and old is sacrificed in favor of an elaborate scheme that turns Jamie
into the Joker of the hipster documentarian milieu.
Problematic? Sure. As
Josh realizes that his friendship with Jamie was a sham, a means for Jamie to advance
his own career, you feel not just regret, but the machinery of Mr. Baumbach
milking his movie for crowd-baiting drama.
But you also feel something else—the tragedy of Josh, a self-proclaimed
“old man,” recognizing that it isn’t his age or his experience that divides him
from Jamie and his ilk; it’s his honesty.
The
world passed him by long ago.
No comments:
Post a Comment