April 3, 2015 [While We're Young]
A movie about couples, kiddo, perfect for your birthday! is what I told my wife. With Ben Stiller, he's hilarious, and Naomi Watts, a real trooper up for anything—and that new oddball-cutie-pie, Adam Driver, and that young actor, I can't remember her name, big eyes, wide smile. I noticed on the way into the theater that it was written and directed by Noah Baumbach. Hmmm. The Squid and the Whale was rough—but he's worked with Wes Anderson, so there's some light—and also Frances Ha —sad but humane. We were safe for a while: heading over the hump between early and middle adulthood, Stiller and Watts meet hipsters, fedora'd and footloose, rambling in a world just out of reach of the younger couple—but the older couple holds out their hands, and they're pulled back—losing touch with much of what they had—which wasn't all that much, probably helped them decide to tumble back into some awkward version of their 20s. Then darkness falls. The hipsters are hollow an
