Pan and Slam

The Intern (2015)

PG-13 | 2h 1min

by Jason Koenigsberg

We all know the once great Robert De Niro has a terrible track record for movies in the past fifteen years or so. His script selection in the twenty-first century is highly questionable to put it nicely. Just go to Rotten Tomatoes and see his noticeable decline in reviews since 2002, or check out this sad article right here which tries to explain why Mr. De Niro has continually appeared in so many wretched movies, but also how cinema has faced a slow and steady decline away from trying to create works of art. 

That being said, every so often you will find a diamond in the rough and Nancy Myers’ film The Intern is exactly that. A funny, insightful and poignant movie about life, work and the evolution of gender roles in the twenty-first, anchored by two solid and endearing performances from its leads, the legendary Robert De Niro and the usually reliable Anne Hathaway. Hathaway plays a hard working business owner and mother, sort of picking up where her character left off in The Devil Wears Prada (2006), another excellent social commentary of life and work in the era it was made. De Niro gives his most heartfelt and relatable performance in quite a long time as a recent widower and retiree bored with a life sans structure and purpose. He longs to feel useful again so he applies to be an intern at her company. Together they form a bond and learn from each other in a film that is as genuinely entertaining as it is a smart character study of age and friendship among people of different generations. I have to be honest, I was not expecting much when I sat down to watch The Intern, but was pleasantly surprised with an all around terrific film and Robert De Niro’s best performance in over a decade. 

The Intern is currently available to stream on HBO Go and HBO Now.