While We're Young

When it comes to comedy, we typically see two different kinds: 1) ones which are fraught with frat falls, toilet humor, lots of four-letter words, and characters that are totally over-the-top to the point that one tires of these characters quickly, or 2) ones that are quirky, with powder-dry humor, usually with some four-letter words and characters that are much more low-key as compared to their counterparts. Sometimes I yearn for a nice in between where a healthy combination would be refreshing. We have in the offing a quirky, dry comedy, drama in the form of "While We're Young".

This story centers around Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts), a childless New York married couple in their mid-forties. As their other friends all start having children, the couple gravitates toward a younger hipster couple named Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried). He's an aspiring documentary filmmaker, a vocation Josh is already involved in. Soon the older couple begins enjoying the energy they feel hanging out with the younger generation, but eventually Josh begins to suspect his new best friend might not be as straightforward as he thought. Why is this a suspicion? Could it be that Jamie is merely sucking up to Josh since his father-in-law, Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin) is an acclaimed documentarian or maybe that Cornelia being Breitbart's daughter, is a producer herself, or could it be that because of all this that Jamie is using Josh, or could Josh be working off of pure paranoia? Who knows?

Others to round out the cast are Adam Horovitz as Fletcher and Maria Dizzia as Marina, both friends of Josh and Cornelia, Dree Hemingway as Tipper, Brady Corbet as Kent, Matt Maher as Tim, an associate of Josh's, Peter Yarrow as Ira Mandelstam, Dean Wareham as Shaman, and James Saito as Dr. Nagato.

This was quirkily directed by Noah Baumbach ("Kicking and Screaming" '95, "Mr. Jealousy" '97, "The Squid and the Whale" '05, "Margot at the Wedding" '07, "Greenberg" '10, "Frances Ha" '12). This filmmaker certainly knows how to exact an amazing amount of dysfunction to his characters in most of his films. With so much dysfunction in this world today, he has definitely tapped into a characteristic that many people can relate to, because people have issues--there's no getting around this. It was very quirkily, however well written by Baumbach (list includes the above plus ""Thirty" (TV movie) 2000, "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou" '04, "Fantastic Mr. Fox" '09, "Madagascar 3: Europe's Most Wanted" '12, "The Corrections" (TV movie, adaptation) '12). As with filmmakers Wes Anderson, Paul Thomas Anderson and the likes, this guy obviously markets on odd, quirky, dry wit with interesting non-formulaic premises--this can be a negative or a positive. His scripts are structured accurately with well thought out characters, but his style does take some getting used to. Every time I see one of his films, my opinion of the film does improve, just because, using objectivity, he is a talented filmmaker. He's simply not a filmmaker who creates for the mass audience appeal, but there is a very definite audience which still keeps him in demand.

If before you enter the theater, if you could just wrap your head around the quirkiness of this filmmaker, I truly believe you will see that this guy is talented. But one has only to be patient and wait and see--and if you do, you will see this guy in the same light as I do.

Out of 4 Stars: 3.5                              Rated: R                                  97mins.