“The Intern” wants to be a warm comedy about a septuagenarian finding purpose again. Instead, it becomes a film about a man who refuses to admit he is lost. Robert De Niro plays Ben Whittaker, a retired widower who takes a part-time gig at a startup founded by a young woman named Jules Ostin. She is played by Anne Hathaway, and the film asks us to believe she needs his wisdom as much as he needs her paycheck. That premise is fine on paper. On screen, it collapses under the weight of its own sincerity.
The film opens with Ben arriving at the office, dressed in a button-down shirt and khakis, looking like a man who has never worn a hoodie in his life. He is a widower who has lost his wife and his sense of purpose. Jules is the founder of a tech company, young, ambitious, and overwhelmed. The setup is simple: she hires him to help with logistics, and he becomes her sounding board. What follows is a predictable trajectory of mutual growth, with Ben learning to use email and Jules learning to trust her instincts.
Trailer, via Warner Bros..
Ben’s Performance
De Niro gives Ben a gruff exterior and a soft heart. He is a grandfatherly figure who tells stories about his past and offers advice that is often too late to be useful. His performance is competent, but it lacks the fire that made him a great actor. There is a flatness to his presence, a sense that he is reading lines rather than inhabiting them. When he delivers a speech about the importance of being present, it feels like a cue card rather than a conviction.
Hathaway fares better. She plays Jules as a woman who is trying to balance her career with her personal life, and she gives the character a weariness that is earned. Her scenes with De Niro have genuine chemistry, even if the dialogue around them is thin. She is the one who makes the film watchable.
The Romance
The film spends a great deal of time setting up a romance between Ben and Jules’s assistant, Leah (Riley Keough). Leah is a young woman who works in the office and is drawn to Ben’s kindness. The relationship is supposed to be sweet, but it comes across as forced. The film keeps pushing Ben toward Leah, and the audience can feel the gears grinding. When Ben finally admits he likes Leah, the moment feels less like a revelation and more like a directive from the script.
The romance with Jules is handled with more subtlety, but it still falls apart. The film wants both women to love Ben, and it cannot decide which one deserves him. This indecision is the film’s biggest flaw. It creates a narrative tension that is never resolved, leaving the viewer feeling cheated.
The Workplace Farce
The workplace is where the film is most comfortable. The scenes of Ben navigating a modern office are genuinely funny, especially when he tries to use technology. He is a man who has never used a computer, and his attempts to send emails and navigate a calendar are comical. These moments work because they are grounded in the absurdity of generational difference.
But the film cannot sustain this tone. As the plot moves forward, the humor becomes saccharine. The jokes about ageism become lectures about respect. The film stops being a comedy and starts being a lecture.
The Message
“The Intern” is a film about the value of experience. It argues that older people have something to offer the younger generation, and that the young need to listen. This is a reasonable argument, but the film overstates it. Ben is constantly telling Jules that she should slow down and enjoy life, but the film never lets him practice what he preaches. He is a man who has spent his life working, and he has not learned to relax.
The message is also undermined by the film’s own hypocrisy. While it praises experience, it also shows a deep discomfort with aging. Ben is allowed to be wise, but he is never shown as vulnerable. He does not suffer from loneliness or grief. He simply finds a new purpose. This erasure of the difficult parts of aging makes the film’s message hollow.
The Craft
The film is competently made. The direction is steady, and the editing keeps the pace moving. The cinematography is bright and clean, with a color palette that suggests optimism. The music is light and pleasant, though it often swells at moments that do not need it. The production design is accurate for a modern office, with open-plan spaces and screens everywhere.
None of this saves the film. Competent craft cannot overcome a weak script. The dialogue is often stilted, with characters saying things they would never say in real life. The performances are good, but they are not enough to elevate the material. The film is a technical success, but it is a thematic failure.
The Verdict
“The Intern” is a film that means well. It wants to say something about aging and purpose, and it almost succeeds. But it fails because it is too afraid to let its characters be complicated. Ben is a saint, and Jules is a goddess. There is no room for the messiness of real relationships.
The film is also too long. At two hours, it drags in its middle stretch, where the plot stalls and the jokes repeat. The runtime could easily have been trimmed by thirty minutes without losing anything essential.
Here is how the elements stack up:
- Ben’s performance — competent, but flat
- Hathaway’s performance — strong, but underwritten
- The workplace comedy — effective early, diluted later
- The romantic triangle — confusing and unresolved
- The message about experience — sincere, but simplistic
- The craft — solid, but serviceable
The film is a mixed bag, and it is best enjoyed as a guilty pleasure rather than a work of art. It has moments of genuine warmth, but it is ultimately a film that is too afraid of its own darkness.
“The Intern” is a film that is trying to be a classic, but it settles for being a comfort food movie. It is not a film that demands attention, but it is not a film that rewards it either.
The Bottom Line
The film is not a disaster, but it is not a triumph. It is a film that is easy to watch and hard to recommend. It is the kind of movie that you might see on a lazy Sunday afternoon, but you would not travel far to see it.
The score is 5.1 out of 10.
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