Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are a middle-aged couple seduced by the attention of super-hip young Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried in this pointed and funny New York comedy about acting your age.
Screened as part of NZIFF 2015
While We’re Young 2014
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In Noah Baumbach’s wittily observed comedy of generation envy, Ben Stiller, master of furrowed self-regard, plays Josh, a 44-year-old documentary maker, stalled on a project for almost a decade. Josh is amazed and delighted when he’s schmoozed by the up-and-coming 25-year-old Jamie, played with lolloping faux naif charm by Adam Driver. Talk about on-the-nose casting: Naomi Watts and Amanda Seyfried slot in just as neatly as the wives swept along by the booby-trapped bromance. Soon the older couple abandon their child-rearing contemporaries to hang out at ayahuasca ceremonies with their much cooler new best friends. The plot thickens with the appearance of another generation again, in the person of Josh’s father-in-law, a doyen of the New York documentary scene played with multi-layered bemusement by the great Charles Grodin.
“It’s about retro hip, VHS, typewriters and vinyl being the domain of cool young things, while their elders go digital and attempt with tragic vanity to keep their fingers on the pulse.” — Tim Robey, The Telegraph
“A deliciously entertaining, funny and honest look at getting old, being young and the intersection of the two at crucial life junctures… While a truly original comedy, While We’re Young is the rare one that also laces rich thematic elements with wonderfully drawn characters to create a picture that’s as genuinely hilarious as it is thoughtful about how hopes, ambitions, dreams and ideals of personal and creative accomplishments ebb and flow across decades.” — Kevin Jagernauth, The Playlist