While We're Young | Film review - Ben Stiller & Naomi Watts try to leap the generation gap

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WHILE WE
(Image credit: Jon Pack)

Middle-aged pair Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts try to leap the generation gap and end up falling flat on their faces in While We're Young, a sardonic satirical comedy by writer-director Noah Baumbach, maker of The Squid and the Whale, Greenberg and Frances Ha.

They’re a childless New York couple in their mid-forties who stop acting their age after they befriend a young hipster couple played by Adam Driver (Girls) and Amanda Seyfried. Soon, she’s getting jiggy at hip-hop dance classes and he’s trying to look cool in a pork-pie hat.

Embarrassment duly follows. Stiller’s documentary filmmaker Josh believes he’s found an eager protégé in Driver’s wannabe director Jamie. Yet, in an echo of the Bette Davis classic All About Eve, the reality turns out to be somewhat different.

The four stars deliver pitch-perfect performances, while Baumbach has satirical fun with both the younger duo’s retro-chic poses and the older couple’s delusions. He also stages some knockout farcical episodes – watch out for the after effects of the nausea inducing hallucinogenic drink everyone imbibes at a comically ridiculous shamanic ceremony.

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Certificate 15. Runtime 97 mins. Director Noah Baumbach.

While We're Young is available on Blu-Ray and DVD and Digital HD from Icon Film Distribution. http://youtube.com/v/K9cG9BzxMps

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Jason Best
Jason Best

A film critic for over 25 years, Jason admits the job can occasionally be glamorous – sitting on a film festival jury in Portugal; hanging out with Baz Luhrmann at the Chateau Marmont; chatting with Sigourney Weaver about The Archers – but he mostly spends his time in darkened rooms watching films. He’s also written theatre and opera reviews, two guide books on Rome, and competed in a race for Yachting World, whose great wheeze it was to send a seasick film critic to write about his time on the ocean waves. But Jason is happiest on dry land with a classic screwball comedy or Hitchcock thriller.