Back in the fall of 2015, my wife and I went to see The Intern, the most recent (that’s still the case) movie from Nancy Meyers, the director behind some of the best ‘90s movies as well as some all-time great rom-coms. Though I thoroughly enjoyed the movie starring Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway, there was something that made me irrationally angry about it. It’s nothing major and doesn’t really ruin the movie for me, it’s just a little sticking point that I remember then forget again.
The Intern recently became available to stream with a Netflix subscription, and the comedy focusing on aging in a meaningful way quickly started trending again, so I started thinking about that one little complaint all over again, like it’s 2015 and I’m experiencing it for the first time. Allow me to explain…
I Enjoy The Intern, But Nancy Meyers’ Portrayal Of Millennial Men Is Absurd
By now, you probably know the basic gist of The Intern – a retired widower is hired as part of an internship program at the offices of a successful up-and-coming online clothing retailer – and what happens throughout the movie. Though I like just about everything about Robert De Niro’s Ben Whittaker and Anne Hathaway’s Jules Ostin, there’s one thing I don’t like, and that’s the way Nancy Meyers portrays Millennial men.
Throughout the movie, pretty much every male character besides Ben is either portrayed as fumbling manboys like the various other interns and junior-level employees or unfaithful partners who don’t know how to properly communicate their feelings, like Jules’ husband (played by Anders Holm). I get it, today’s men (or at least in 2015) aren’t the same as they were 50 years ago, but this “one size fits all” approach to portraying an entire generation is absurd and out of touch.
Yeah, We Don’t Dress Or Act Like Robert De Niro’s Generation, But We’re Not Hapless
There’s a scene in The Intern that drives me up a wall and makes my skin crawl to the point where I’m a walking skeleton. During an afterwork get together (it’s featured in the movie’s trailer from way back when) where Jules, speaking to Ben and a group of younger male employees, says: “How, in one generation, have men gone from guys like Jack Nicholson and Harrison Ford to…” while looking at one of the millennial guys. That sounds like something I’d hear from one of my distant relatives in the middle of a Facebook rant, not from an Academy Award-winning actress in a major studio picture.
I get it, the younger characters in The Intern, who are supposed to be a general representation of the modern man who don’t dress or act as masculine as those from Ben’s generation, but times have changed. We’re not as hapless, irresponsible, or meek as the movie makes us out to be, and it’s just bonkers that this happened.
I know this all sounds utterly ridiculous, and the comedy of this gripe isn’t lost on me, but I can’t act like Nancy Meyers’ portrayal of young male characters in The Intern isn’t totally off base.
