While We're Young (2014)

A middle-aged couple's career and marriage are overturned when a disarming young couple enters their lives.

Director:

Noah Baumbach

Writers:

Noah Baumbach, Henrik Ibsen (epigraph from "A Master Builder" by)

Stars:

Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver

1 win & 2 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Naomi Watts	...	Cornelia
Ben Stiller	...	Josh
Maria Dizzia	...	Marina
Adam Horovitz	...	Fletcher
Matthew Maher	...	Tim (as Matt Maher)
Peter Yarrow	...	Ira Mandelstam
Bonnie Kaufman	...	Ira's Wife
Hector Otero	...	Frank
Deborah Eisenberg	...	New School Woman
Adam Driver	...	Jamie
Amanda Seyfried	...	Darby
Dree Hemingway	...	Tipper
Matthew Shear	...	Benny
Annie Baker	...	Elise
Quincy Tyler Bernstine	...	Pepper

Storyline

Josh Srebnick is 44. He is married to Cornelia, 43, the daughter of Leslie Breitbart, a respected documentary filmmaker. The couple lives comfortably in New York Village and gives the image of happiness. But things are not so rosy as they look: on a personal level, their relationships have been cooling down while they suffer from not having children. On a professional plane, things have deteriorated as well. Josh, who is also a documentary filmmaker like his father-in-law, has lost inspiration: he has been grappling with his last movie for eight years now without being able to complete it. To be true, Josh goes nowhere and his marriage is on the rocks. Things start changing when Josh and Cornelia meet another married pair: Jamie and Darby, a generation younger, express their admiration for Josh (Jamie wishing to become a documentary filmmaker himself). Plus, they are much cooler, smarter and more uninhibited than the two forty-odds. Could they help Josh and Cornelia to revive their ...

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Plot Keywords:

documentary filmmaker | documentary filmmaking | father in law | baby | hipster | 

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Taglines:

Life never gets old

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Genres:

Comedy | Drama | Mystery

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for language

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [Japan]

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

17 April 2015 (USA)

Also Known As:

Mientras somos jóvenes

Filming Locations:

Jackson Hole Restaurant, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$10,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend USA:

$227,688, 29 March 2015

Gross USA:

$7,587,485

Cumulative Worldwide Gross:

$21,075,757

Company Credits

Production Co:

IAC Films, Scott Rudin Productions

Technical Specs

Runtime:

97 min

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Although his face is never shown in close-up, the speaker who presents Leslie with his lifetime achievement tribute at Lincoln Center is Peter Bogdanovich, a film historian & director whose credits include The Last Picture Show (1971), Targets (1968), & Paper Moon (1973). In his real life, Bogdanovich has both presented many of these kinds of honors to film luminaries (for example, he presented Cyd Charisse's Texas Film Award to her in Austin), and been given many himself.

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Quotes

Tim: Why is it that when one person picks up their phone, everybody else has to?
Cornelia: I just have a quick thing...
Tim: Each of us is so certain that we've got the most important thing to do right now.
Cornelia: [still using her phone] I know, it's so rude.

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Connections

References High Plains Drifter (1973)

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Soundtracks

Concerto In G Major For Two Mandolins, Srings And Organ (Instrumental)
Written by Antonio Vivaldi
Performed by Max Goberman, New York Sinfonietta
Courtesy of Sony Classical
By arrangement with Sony Music Licensing

User Reviews

The Logline was (likely) a lot better than the actual film

I am imagining that the logline when this was initially pitched was something like "This is 40 with deeper, darker, insights." Or something.

And on paper that sounds really cool. The casting is also great, at least on paper. Plus, as we all know, Woody Allen has shown that these sorts of films can find an audience, and make money.

So on paper this was pure magic.

In real life? Not so much.

1. First, let's stop giving Woody Allen credit for inventing these sorts of films. He actually revived what used to a form of stage play called "comedies of Manners" and more or less built a second (spectacular) a career on that. This is a comedy of Manners. No more and no less.

2. Naomi Watts is solid, as is Seyfried. Ben Stiller, one of the most bankable stars in Hollywood, seems a little lost here, as though he can't quite find the right note for his character. Plus -- the casting director should have noticed -- he has a prematurely aged face, that is, he always looks older than he is. That does not help his character, or the audience, at all.

3.The pacing is not merely bad, it is terrible. The dialog and story in this specific comedy of Manners are not sharp enough to carry the viewer through the slow bits. Plus, it does not help that Stiller's character, who plays a "failed film-maker," loves to rhapsodize about how "boring films eventually get interesting." If that was an inside joke, it is in bad taste.

4. The only "fun" bit in the entire film? At the 1:00 minute mark precisely, Naomi Watts mimics her Russian character from Saint Vincent. I smiled. That was the only smile the movie offered.

5. In the opinion of this reviewer, the entire overlong and convoluted sub-arc about the nature of film and documentaries (what is real, what is staged? etc) must have seemed clever during the first draft, sort of a Joss Whedonesque deconstruction of the medium (like Cabin in the Woods) but, as the film plays, it simply drags down deeper a story which is already drowning in its own self-awareness and navel-gazing.