A Slice Of The 21^st Century Workplace Life-Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro’s The Intern     

DVD Review

By Sam Lowell

The Intern, Anne Hathaway, Robert De Niro, 2015  

 

A while back I mentioned in reviewing a lesser Barbara Stanwyck film vehicle My Reputation which addressed the issue of the social strictures surrounding the romantic life of a high society widowed matron that such subject matter would seem strange, weird in today’s more liberated social milieu. Probably, aside from the problem of the film being too melodramatic for today’s audiences, the film couldn’t have been produced today in the same format. Not true with the film under review, The Intern, a semi-comic look at the “life” of an Internet start-up and of its prime mover and shaker, Jules, played by fetching Anne Hathaway who started the thing from scratch like a lot of such operations these days, going either to billionaire-hood or flat broke.        

Here is how the demographics and social commentary played out in this one, how we get a look at the old style work culture and the new buzz buzz fly away office culture getting formed and settled in the 21^st century new age of globalization, part two. Jules, who started her e-commerce fashion apparel business on the fly, went from her kitchen to a renovated brick and mortar building in Brooklyn (of course Brooklyn that is the new wave place in New Jack City now that the serious billionaires have priced everybody else out of Manhattan) “agreed” to a good publicity hiring of senior citizen interns to bridge some gaps between the generations. (That idea of interns of any kind fairly new in the business world and a source of plenty of cheap mostly unpaid labor.)      

Up steps personable Ben, played by Robert De Niro, a veteran of the old style business world made graphically clear by his former profession as an executive in a firm that printed phonebooks which even a generation of ‘68 guy like me gave up years ago and seem to have been relegated to the junk-heap along with, well, telephone booths even if once in a while when the old cellphone dies such a refuge booth could be very helpful. He is assigned to workaholic, speak fast or get off the track, no time for (1) interns, (2) old guys, (3) and the hired help in general Jules, of course. Naturally as well he was/is an old organizational man, a gofer if need be but he brings lots of wisdom to Jules once he breaks the ice, makes himself, old commerce or e-commerce invaluable as an advisor to her.     

Get this though despite the “no glass ceiling can keep me down” shoulder to the wheel, push forward Jules persona she is married and a mother of a sweet young girl who is being cared for by a stay-at home father. (Who ever heard of such a category- stay-at-home father in my father’s generation-or mine, usually if he was stay at home he was a bum or a drifter not a fit father.) Naturally there are going to be problems there to be resolved. The biggest problem though, the one that really drove the second half of the film is the news that start from scratch up until all hours fretting over every detail Jules was going to be taken out of her CEO position by the venture capitalist investors who see her as stretched too thin (and not eating being too thin although I don’t they gave a damn about that but certainly Ben did).     

So along the way in this one (aside from the inevitable Hollywood throw in of a marriage crisis with stay at home dad “cheating” on Jules with one of the traditional stay-at home Moms, go figure) we get a very good look at the new open space office culture (hustle hard in front of those Apple computers and get massage by a fetching masseuse), the whims of venture capitalists, the tough life of a working executive Mom, and the residue of the old office culture which somehow didn’t seem so old. Here’s what I was wondering after viewing this one though. In let’s say 2066 will somebody looking at this film think that same thing about 2016 high tech office culture I thought about the weird social mores shown in Barbara Stanwyck’s My Reputation mentioned above.