The Intern (2015)

[Athena]

Directed by Nancy Meyers. The film stars Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway, along with Nat Wolff and Adam DeVine. Opening September 25, 2015.

 

[beetnemesis]

I like the trailer and going wot watch this movie. 

[Bruinsfan]

This is the first slice-of-life dramedy I've seen a truly appealing trailer for in a very long time. (See what you get when someone besides Judd Apatow works in the genre?) I'm just crossing every finger I have that the sweet friendship between DeNiro and Hathaway's characters remains platonic throughout.

[raezen]

I want to see this as well but I also hope that this is about a platonic friendship.

[Petunia13]

I don't like Anne Hathaway but thins looks interesting.

[Crs97]

The trailer seems to suggest Renee Russo as his love interest. I hope Anne's character is in a happy marriage. I can't imagine anyone would think putting them together romantically is a good idea. But Hollywood is the land of imagination.

[Bruinsfan]

Especially when the thing being imagined is an older white dude hooking up with a beautiful young woman.

[vavera4ka]

I liked the movie a lot.

Very kind, feel good dramedy. And it WAS funny. Obviously great acting.

[NumberCruncher]

I really liked it as well. I know that Nancy Meyers movies haven't exactly been critical favorites for awhile now, but one thing they do have is heart and I appreciate that. This movie was no exception. I thought Robert DeNiro's and Anne Hathaway's performances were both very strong their characters were charming as well.

To put people's fears to rest re: the older man/younger ingenue romance cliche, there was none of that. All of the romantic pairings were quite age-appropriate (not that older/younger romantic pairings are wrong, just that the Hollywood tendency to portray them is completely absent in this movie).

[Spartan Girl]

I liked it as well. Was NOT expecting the part where they break into her mom's home just to delete that offending email. A bit out of place, but it was hilarious.

My one beef was the third act revelation that Jules' husband was having an affair. Man, I was really really hoping to avoid the whole trope of the husband cheating on his wife because she was a workaholic career woman. I guess it was handled well enough without making the husband to look like a complete jerk. Still, seriously, Hollywood?!

[Bruinsfan]

My question is when did Matt have the time to set up and conduct an affair? He's the primary caregiver of a precocious, active preschool-aged daughter whose mom still pays tons of attention to her if not him. I think Paige might have mentioned it to Jules if Daddy had a habit of disappearing behind a locked bedroom door when she went over to a friend's for playdates.

[Spartan Girl]

My question is when did Matt have the time to set up and conduct an affair? He's the primary caregiver of a precocious, active preschool-aged daughter whose mom still pays tons of attention to her if not him. I think Paige might have mentioned it to Jules if Daddy had a habit of disappearing behind a locked bedroom door when she went over to a friend's for playdates.

Yeah that's what made me angry. I feel like the movie just threw that revelation in as an obligatory afterthought. I was really hoping this would be a movie that didn't resort to such a lazy trope. Oh well. It was still good.

[Mars477]

When I first saw the trailer I was like, "Wait, are they going to have Hathaway and Deniro bang?"

Considering how much of Hollywood is older white men surrounding themselves with gorgeous younger women, I wouldn't have totally discounted the possibility.

[raezen]

I saw it and enjoyed it. It was refreshing to see someone De Niro's generation saying that Hathaway's character was not responsible for her husband feeling emasculated. It made me mad that even during the talk about his infidelity she was giving him a gold star for letting her pursue her dream. Yeesh.

Can I also add that while I wasn't a fan of the infidelity plot either I was glad that Jules wasn't totally clueless. I had seen some posters on other sites say how awful they thought Jules ' drunk rant about this generation producing boys not men, but that rant looks a little different when you realize she knew her husband was cheating at the time and she desperately wanted her marriage to work.

Edited October 9, 2015 by raezen

[SallyAlbright]

I absolutely loved it, I am a sucker for all of Nancy Meyers' movies, considering they are mostly all the same (even down to the music). Anne Hathaway was adorable and I thought she did a really great job of showing her character's struggles and reservations while still being likable and not too mean to Ben. Of course, De Niro was perfect, I want him to be my best friend. My only issue with the film was Jules' husband. He wasn't appealing enough to me to justify her staying with him- I kept picturing someone like John Krasinski in the role instead, which would have worked better in my opinion. 

[Raja]

My question is when did Matt have the time to set up and conduct an affair? He's the primary caregiver of a precocious, active preschool-aged daughter whose mom still pays tons of attention to her if not him. I think Paige might have mentioned it to Jules if Daddy had a habit of disappearing behind a locked bedroom door when she went over to a friend's for playdates.

I think they said the other woman was a mother in the group with preschoolers. I thought from decades of Law & Order that  the kids spent time at the proper exclusive pre-school and while the kids were there to qualify for the right private school as a prelim to getting in the Ivy Leagues was when the parents cheated.

[DrSpaceman73]

Saw it today.

Was an enjoyable movie, though I thought it dragged on a bit too long

I am glad they did not have DeNiro and Hathaway pair up. Was really nervous thats where it was going towards the end.

Thought it would be funnier though. It had its funny moments, but calling it a "dramedy" is stretching it. Its about 90% drama and 10% comedy.

[PepSinger]

I thought this movie was great. It was charming, funny, well-paced, well-acted, and worked in every way. This movie felt very pro-women to me, and I really, really appreciated that. Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro were magical in their roles.

[answerphone]

I agree with SallyAlbright! (Sorry, don't know how to copy/paste on my phone). I expected Jules' husband to be a much more handsome, preppy guy, maybe with a two day beard stubble. They seemed like a mismatched couple.

[joanne3482]

I watched it last night. I concur with above about hating the husband cheater storyline. I had hoped they wouldn't go there. He couldn't just be a happy SAHD. I was also super concerned she was going to find Ben dead. They foreshadowed his heart condition and the sweating, I was so worried he was going to die I looked it up in Wikipedia before the end of the movie. 

[BooBear]

I just saw this on HBO. I didn't like it. I thought it was very anti woman.  Anne Hathaway's character seemed a total mess (Nancy Meyer special) that was *saved* by this old guy. The movie was saying she needed him but of course he could do everything. Ben was perfect. Like the magical negro the magical elderly person.  And was every woman just a mess while guys were much more together?  The cheating plot angered me because I know a lot of women like this that are willing just to hand-wave their husband's cheating because they need a husband. Plus, was it me or did this movie have NO plot. About 90 minutes in I felt like things were just going on and on and on.   And for those of you thankful that they didn't hook up Deniro with Hathaway, so what, Rene Russo? She is like 25 years younger. No way. Not buying that.

[AimingforYoko]

Rene Russo is 60. So more like ten years younger.

[absnow54]

Ben reminded me a lot of my father in law, who is a retired widower and feels lost without the daily structure in his life, so I immediately connected with his journey and really felt for him. He did come across as the magically wise old guy near the end though. My husband and I were waiting for Anne Hathaway to offer him the CEO position, since he seemed to do everything better than her.

I really liked Anne Hathaway's plot, but I hated the resolution from the cheating husband reveal onward. I felt like she was under enough pressure that the cheating just seemed cheap, especially since she immediately took him back. It also felt like, in the end, Jules lost all her agency and just did whatever Ben told her. I thought that Hathaway and De Niro had charming chemistry though, and I liked the film well enough.

[AyeshaTheGreat]

On ‎5‎/‎29‎/‎2016 at 8:01 AM, BooBear said:

I just saw this on HBO. ...

Plus, was it me or did this movie have NO plot. About 90 minutes in I felt like things were just going on and on and on.   ...

I, too, just saw this movie on HBO and felt the same as I was watching.  About half-way through, I started to wonder what was the plot/point of this movie.  Maybe if DeNiro wasn't playing the "magical old guy", there could have been time to develop an actual story. 

As it was, I was not offended by the movie (since I didn't see it in theatres), but I thought it would be better. 

[Empress1]

On May 29, 2016 at 0:10 PM, AimingforYoko said:

Rene Russo is 60. So more like ten years younger.

She was supposed to be a peer, too (and I would say a ten-year-age difference, especially at their ages, is nothing). She had a grandkid on the way, she said stuff like "at our ages," etc. Rene Russo looks young for her age but that wasn't supposed to be a May-December romance. I liked them together.

It's always so weird to me that on TV and in movies, the working mother is the only working mother she knows. That is not my experience at ALL. The vast majority of my friends who are mothers work. One of the ones who doesn't is dying to get back into the work force (she's been out about a year and a half and is having a hard time finding a job). Now, having said that, the SAHMs that were depicted in the movie are a particular breed found in NYC and Anne Hathaway's character would have come across them, but she would also have employees who are working mothers. There are mothers in the c-suite.

My and my friends' parents are starting to retire and some of them like it and some don't. My dad retired last year and he likes it; my childhood friend's dad HATES being retired and now does a lot of volunteering (he was a partner at a law firm) because he needs to get up and go somewhere every day. So I understood why Ben would want something to do, particularly since he was widowed. His life had had a lot of structure before and now it didn't, and he needed it. Some people are like that.

The cheating reveal annoyed me too - she was just like "Is it over? Okay!" and she blamed herself for it and basically straight-up admitted that she didn't want to be alone. I wanted her to be stronger than that - like, if they decide to stay together, OK, but at least give it some consequences! Get mad! Fight!

I did laugh out loud at the "break in and delete the email" sequence. It was unnecessary, but funny.

[GaT]

I just saw this on HBO too, & it was OK. It was nice to see DeNiro is a role that was a little different than his usual 'tough guy" role, but I agree with other people who felt there wasn't really a plot. The ending didn't make much sense to me either, since the reason they wanted her to hire a CEO was because she couldn't do everything herself, so deciding not to hire one didn't give her more hours in the day, or make her get to meetings on time, or anything else that would be helpful. She just ends up in the same place she started in.

[Steph619]

I just saw this movie on HBO too over the weekend with my brother and we were both expecting Jules to offer Ben the CEO position at her company so that was a bit of a letdown. Even though I liked the movie overall especially because of Anne Hathaway and Robert DeNiro's chemistry, I disliked the ending very much. I hated that she stayed with her cheating husband because she couldn't bear to be alone without him. She had her daughter and although she was a hardworking career woman with not much time to be at home like her husband, I would've loved to have seen her make it work somehow and prove that she didn't need him. The ending just seemed very unresolved with Jules coming to the decision not to hire a CEO and Ben weirdly not being at work at the end. I thought he quit.

[Amethyst]

To my surprise, I really enjoyed this.  It's perfect Sunday afternoon viewing; not too involving, but easy to watch.  It helps that Hathaway and DeNiro had good chemistry, and didn't hook up.  I like to think of this as the unofficial sequel to The Devil Wears Prada, with Andie running her own company. 

That said, there were some flaws.  Ben was too good to be true at times, especially when Jules brought up the very-real issue of sexism in the workplace.  I doubt Ben ran across many (if any) female CEOs during his time at the phone company, so his "Jules Ostin is my hero" bit fell flat.  The email break in was convoluted and unnecessary.  And I like Rene Russo, but she was just there as a love interest for DeNiro, since he clearly wasn't feeling that other woman. 

The cheating husband thing didn't bother me.  It would have been more cliched if Matt had decided to leave Jules for his mistress, because that's usually what happens.  I liked that he realized he was wrong and encouraged Jules to ditch the CEO idea if it wasn't what she wanted.  Although it did look like it was leading up to Ben being the CEO.

Also, the little girl (JoJo Kushner) playing their daughter was adorable.  Child actors can be very iffy, but she was so sweet and endearing.  And looked very much like the child of Anne Hathaway and Anders Holm.

[paramitch]

I enjoyed this, especially the first half, but was dismayed by the second half, when Hathaway's character becomes a weepy, distracted, childish mess who needs to be saved by De Niro's sweet intern.

I was (I admit) also just tense and terrified during the final third that (1) DeNiro would die (heavily foreshadowed) or (2) would become lovers with Hathaway.

I mean, the final quarter of the film, she's clutching at him constantly, weeping, vomiting, sleeping, bemoaning downfall of the modern man, etc. Then after her husband's infidelity, she's literally asking him to crawl into bed with her, and this really felt artificial and unbelievable to me. I was just so tense, going, "Oh God, please please please don't sleep with him"). I mean, even DeNiro keeps a foot on the floor there, like he is highly uncomfortable.

I also felt like there was a subplot excised from the film with Hathaway's second in command (the guy from "Book of Mormon"), who always gave off conflicting vibes of "I am your best friend" and "I will betray you." Then it all just ended with no word from him in the final quarter at all.

The central conundrum of the film also felt weird to me. Why invent the NEED for a CEO when the believable scenario would have been for them to simply build the conflict around a board-specified addition of a top officer (not CEO)? This could have allowed Hathaway to stay top of the pack (with no challengers) while still conflicted about who to bring on to help steer the company in the next phases.

I enjoyed the movie. I just hated that the final act was all about Hathaway's (1) entire company (passive-aggressively) insisting she bring on SOMEONE ELSE TO RUN THE COMPANY, and (2) her weepy dissolution at her drippy husband's unfaithfulness.

I didn't mind that the guy wasn't as pretty as Anne (almost impossible, the girl is a living Disney character, she's so beautiful), but I did mind that he was such a freaking DRIP. He wasn't sentenced to prison. He volunteered to stay home with his beautiful kid while supporting a wife who could give them an incredible lifestyle. Ugh. (And I didn't mind that he wasn't cute, but it did make the plot kind of absurd).

Last but not least: This wasn't a bad movie. And it offered a clear and needed plot POV on seniors. But why oh why was Ben the only one worth listening to? Why did SHE have to grow but not (perfect) Ben? Why not show that he was in fact jaded or sexist? Why not show that she had something to teach him?? Why did she have to end as a kind of sweet passive adoring granddaughter unable to go to battle on her own?

[topanga]

On 6/22/2016 at 11:39 AM, paramitch said:

I enjoyed the movie. I just hated that the final act was all about Hathaway's (1) entire company (passive-aggressively) insisting she bring on SOMEONE ELSE TO RUN THE COMPANY, and (2) her weepy dissolution at her drippy husband's unfaithfulness.

I actually liked this aspect of the plot. Like many women,  Jules became convinced that she was responsible for all of the problems in her life, whether it be her cheating husband, her husband feeling unfulfilled, or the need for a CEO because of her company's exponential growth (yes, she was told this was a problem). Especially because men were telling her either directly or indirectly that these "problems" were her fault. 

On 6/22/2016 at 11:39 AM, paramitch said:

I mean, the final quarter of the film, she's clutching at him constantly, weeping, vomiting, sleeping, bemoaning downfall of the modern man, etc. Then after her husband's infidelity, she's literally asking him to crawl into bed with her, and this really felt artificial and unbelievable to me. I was just so tense, going, "Oh God, please please please don't sleep with him"). I mean, even DeNiro keeps a foot on the floor there, like he is highly uncomfortable.

It seems like this portion of the movie supported the trope of the hard-working career woman being cold and bitchy, but secretly she's lonely, insecure, and has no friends. Ben represented the friend that she couldn't seem to find anywhere. Though I agree with you and Ben that it was kinda creepy for Jules to invite him into her hotel room and into her bed. If the roles were reversed, this could be considered sexual harassment--even though nothing happened. 

On 6/22/2016 at 11:39 AM, paramitch said:

I didn't mind that the guy wasn't as pretty as Anne (almost impossible, the girl is a living Disney character, she's so beautiful), but I did mind that he was such a freaking DRIP. He wasn't sentenced to prison. He volunteered to stay home with his beautiful kid while supporting a wife who could give them an incredible lifestyle. Ugh. (And I didn't mind that he wasn't cute, but it did make the plot kind of absurd).

Last but not least: This wasn't a bad movie. And it offered a clear and needed plot POV on seniors. But why oh why was Ben the only one worth listening to? Why did SHE have to grow but not (perfect) Ben? Why not show that he was in fact jaded or sexist? Why not show that she had something to teach him?? Why did she have to end as a kind of sweet passive adoring granddaughter unable to go to battle on her own?

I recently watched this movie for the first time, and last weekend I watched The Devil Wears Prada for the first time. Imagine my surprise when I learned that Devil was released in 2006, a full 9 years before this one. Anne Hathaway has not aged. She actually looks prettier in 2015 (at 32) than she did in '06 (at 23). 

[andromeda331]

Finally got around to watch the movie. I like it like I liked Devil Wears Prada. I loved Jules and Ben, the employees and all scenes at work. I didn't like the husband or scenes with him or scenes with the other moms. I liked the friendship between Jules and Ben and Ben with the other employees. I loved the caper of trying them trying to steal her mom's computer. 

I didn't like the husband not as much as I hated the boyfriend in the other movie. But there was no chemistry, their scenes were boring and a stay at home dad happy about it but she's gone a lot so of course he has an affair.  

I hated the affair. It was just so unnecessary. Jules decides to go with CEO because then just maybe her marriage would survive? She changes her mind, her husband shows up to tell her not to do it. Then that's it? Everything okay again? All promises fix or going to be fixed. She's not going to wonder where he is when she's still working her million hours. Why can't he just be happy to be a stay at home dad and not cheat on his wife? Also, I know they never said who the woman was just another mom but did anyone else think it was the mom of their daughter's friend who is no longer friends with? I wondered if it was her and that's why the two girls weren't friends anymore.

They could have skipped that all together and did something with whatever Jules problem with her mother was. They bring it up, show her calls with her mother and had her employees steal her mother's computer but nothing happens. Its just dropped.

Also, no one other mom at her daughter's daycare works? Really? 2015 and all their husbands still make enough money that they don't have to work? None of them are raising a kid on their own or divorced or has to work, or wants to work? 

[Amethyst]

The movie is still breezy fun, but it really does fall apart in the last 30 minutes.  The last scene with Jules and her husband needed more than "Ok, no CEO and all is forgiven."  At the very least, those two needed marriage counseling.

On 6/22/2016 at 10:39 AM, paramitch said:

The central conundrum of the film also felt weird to me. Why invent the NEED for a CEO when the believable scenario would have been for them to simply build the conflict around a board-specified addition of a top officer (not CEO)? This could have allowed Hathaway to stay top of the pack (with no challengers) while still conflicted about who to bring on to help steer the company in the next phases.

Bingo.  It didn't have to be all or nothing.  Ben was right that no one could run the company like Jules, but there needed to be someone else to help shoulder the load.  At the rate the company was growing, Jules would only have more responsibilities on top of the ones she already had.  Ben might have helped mellow her out but he wasn't taking on the new duties.  

[andromeda331]

On ‎3‎/‎9‎/‎2019 at 12:33 AM, Amethyst said:

The movie is still breezy fun, but it really does fall apart in the last 30 minutes.  The last scene with Jules and her husband needed more than "Ok, no CEO and all is forgiven."  At the very least, those two needed marriage counseling.

Yes, that needed to be longer and they need marriage counseling or something. He cheated on her. She's just going to let that go? She can just let that go? She's not going to wonder if he's where he says he is? If he's really sick? There needed to be more to resolve that plot then just what they showed. 

Quote

Bingo.  It didn't have to be all or nothing.  Ben was right that no one could run the company like Jules, but there needed to be someone else to help shoulder the load.  At the rate the company was growing, Jules would only have more responsibilities on top of the ones she already had.  Ben might have helped mellow her out but he wasn't taking on the new duties.  

Yes, Jules shouldn't and clearly didn't want to hirer a CEO to take over her company. If not for the cheating she never would have agreed. But its also clear that she does need help. Whether its someone to share her responsibilities, take over parts or something. She is really busy all the time. Not hiring a CEO changes nothing. She still has all those responsibilities. She still needs to hire or promote someone to help with that.