While We're Young (15)

Reviewed by Demetrios Matheou

Although Noah Baumbach's previous films, such as The Squid And The Whale, Greenberg and Frances Ha, have always featured incidental humour, While We're Young is his first out-and-out comedy. And it's a hoot, an acutely observed, very funny dissection of the age-old topic of the generational divide.

Josh and Cornelia Srebnick (Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts) are a couple with unease rippling beneath the paper-thin contentment of their routine. In their forties, they are about to experience a collective midlife crisis, brought to a head by an infatuation with a younger couple.

The Srebnicks live in a nice apartment in Brooklyn, apparently happy with their "decision" not to have children, albeit a choice that was out of their hands and is seeing them drift away from their family-oriented friends.

"We have the freedom," asserts Josh. "What we do with it isn't important." But while they steer clear of anything that whiffs of spontaneity, there is a nagging discontent, particularly for Josh. A documentary maker in a creative rut, he's been working for 10 years on the same film, an earnest political analysis that his father-in-law, Leslie (Charles Grodin), a renowned director, describes as "six and a half hours that feels like it's seven hours too long".

At the end of one of Josh's film lectures he meets Jamie and Darby (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried). Jamie, who also makes documentaries, professes to be a big fan. They go to dinner, Cornelia joins them and a rapport develops.

At first, what's most striking is the reversal of our own expectations. It's the older couple who are glued to their smart phones and iPads, while the younger pair are committed to life "off line", to vinyl, to classic films. Jamie and Darby are the traditionalists - Darby makes homemade ice cream, Jamie builds the furniture in their cool loft.

The seduction, then, is one-way, especially for Josh, who enjoys the professional respect Jamie showers on him, and ridiculously starts to copy the younger man's wardrobe. Darby is less pushy with her personality, and Cornelia less impressionable than her partner, yet even she finds herself suddenly going to hip hop dance classes. Josh and Cornelia's friends (including Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz as a new dad, a reminder of the inevitability of growing up) are forgotten.

Much of the humour comes from the social interactions between the new friends, the highlight being when they visit a shaman, the aim being to "hallucinate and vomit up your demons" and which happens to be a great leveller. Driver, who has accumulated a vast female following due to his role in Girls, plays Jamie as a sort of pied piper, at times absurdly affected yet with everyone playing to his tune. His is the most charismatic presence, but Watts the funniest, particularly with the physical comedy of Cornelia's new adventures in dance.

Within his scenario, Baumbach stealthily investigates different generational tensions. One is the schism formed between people of the same age, once children come into the mix. The other, the growing unease felt by older generations at a time when youthful fearlessness has become a much more dominant force than experience, and when being "connected" is such very hard work.

The plot strand involving Jamie's own documentary project, and Josh's increasing dismay at the younger man's cynical methods, showcases this unease. It's perhaps the film's weakest link, a little too blunt and too easily feeding off Stiller's paranoid shtick. But there's also a delightful subtlety in the veteran Leslie's more easy-going view of Jamie. "He's not evil. He's just young."