Photo by Jon Pack, Courtesy of A24
When the new millennium began, all eyes were on Generation X as the avatars of the future. That was 15 years ago. Since then, a new generation, the Millennials, climbed into their twenties, relegating GenXers to yesterday’s news and the onset of middle age.
What to do when the bloom of youth fails? For Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts), the protagonists of While We’re Young, it could mean getting down with the kids—hanging with the Millennials rather than having their own children. While We’re Young is a comedy that delivers little out-loud laughter but many droll moments and much to think about as Josh and Cornelia ponder age, professional dissatisfaction, marital stagnation and the challenge of new attitudes. As much as anything, the fortysomething couple wants to escape the baby cult all their friends have joined, complete with enthusiastic sonograms and the endless array of classes middle-class parents are expected to attend to learn what came naturally to their ancestors. Josh and Cornelia don’t have children, and all this ga-ga-goo-gooing has gotten old.
Josh is a documentary filmmaker who completed one movie and has been stuck in production on the follow-up—for 10 years. Cornelia is the daughter of America’s greatest documentarian, a prestigious figure whose contempt for his son-in-law is barely restrained. Life turns around for them when they encounter childless twentysomethings Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). She makes ice cream, sort of for money. He wants to shoot documentaries and acts in awe of Josh’s one completed movie, which he found on VHS via eBay. The foursome begins spending time together and the gravity of the fun Millennials pull Josh and Cornelia away from their dull crowd of diaper-changing GenXers.
The energy of Jamie and Darby is invigorating, and Josh and Cornelia find much in common with them as well as intriguing contrasts. They listen to the same music, albeit Jamie prefers vinyl LPs to the iPod. Jamie and Darby don’t reject the new technology but love the old, whether manual typewriters, cassette tapes or paper books. As Jamie tries to fathom the philosophy of documentary filmmaking, Josh rediscovers the joy of riding a bike—and the cool factor of wearing a hipster hat.
And yet, unsettling notes are heard on the margins. Is Jamie more interested in getting to know Josh’s esteemed father-in-law than in hanging with Josh? Is there a touch of All About Eve in the enthusiasm of the young for their elders?
With While We’re Young, writer-director Noah Baumbach reaches beyond the emotionally narrow confines of previous films such as The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha. The story eventually explores the ethics of documentaries and the search for truth. Is what’s true simply waiting to be discovered and recorded or do artists and filmmakers have the right to tweak the truth to get at the larger reality? Does a market even exist for hard truths unless they are made entertaining and cast in a three-act structure? While We’re Young worries about all these things, as well as maintaining integrity and spontaneity as we grow up.
