Even Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway can’t save this one. It’s all too clichéd and boring. With the working mom premise, The Intern doesn’t offer anything interesting by way of its story. Let us look at how it fails to keep you hooked in spite of Robert De Niro’s charismatic presence. Also, the senior citizen internship program idea that could have been played up to great laughs doesn’t quite work in Nancy Meyers The Intern.
| Overall: |  (2.0 / 5) |
| Story: |  (1.8 / 5) |
| Acting: |  (3.0 / 5) |
| Music: | (2.0 / 5) |
| Dialogue: | (2.0 / 5) |
| Visuals: | (2.0 / 5) |
Robert De Niro plays Ben Whittaker, a man in his early 70s who’s completely unsavvy with technology. Ben happens to lay his eyes upon an ad for a senior citizen internship program with a fashion website. With plenty of time to kill, Ben decides to give it a shot. The only hitch is that the boss of this startup, Jules Ostin, played by Anne Hathaway, doesn’t seem to know about the program. Anyway, she has to go ahead with Ben as an intern.
Although, Ben’s an instant hit in the office with his affable personality, Jules isn’t quite sure if Ben should stay as her intern, as he keeps interfering in her affairs. On the home front, Jules has a stay-at-home husband, who looks after their daughter. For him, giving up his marketing career for Jules wasn’t easy.
The rest of the story plays out pretty much as expected without any major plot twists. Although, in a comedy you’d not expect much of the latter, you would still want some hilarious scenes that are missing from this Nancy Meyers movie. The Intern is not just clichéd like I pointed out earlier, but also it doesn’t have a proper story. To be honest, I did find the idea of Ben going for an internship program with a fashion startup to be amusing. But why in the name of the good lord did the makers of this movie decide to turn it into a drama rather than an outright comedy?
Are we expected to sympathize with Jules’s stay-at-home husband or with her? The drama that is shoved into the latter half of the movie is uncalled for. As a viewer, you don’t connect with any of the characters on the screen, either emotionally or otherwise, and that is pretty sad. At almost two hours, The Intern could have utilized that much time instead for some funny gags, which would have paid off better rather than taking the emotional route. Also, why couldn’t they have come up with some interesting characters to play Ben’s colleagues? Apart from Rene Russo’s character, who’s a masseuse at the office, and with whom he forms a close bond, there is nothing worthy of mention.
If it weren’t for Robert De Niro’s charm, The Intern would be an utter failure. As it is, there is nothing much that it can boast about apart from the fact that it has two Academy Award winners as part of its cast. In fact, it is a shame that with the likes of Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway, the result is well below par. Of course, it has nothing to do with the actors, as the story leaves much to be desired. I wish I could say that The Intern is a one-time watch, but sadly, it is not even that.
What do you think?