REVIEW: While We're Young

Starring: Ben Stiller, Naomi Watts, Adam Driver, Amanda Seyfried, Charles Grodin, Maria Dizzia, Adam Horowitz, Brady Corbet, Dree Hemingway.

Director: Noah Baumbach.

Released: April 3 (UK & Ireland)

OPENING with a quote from Ibsen's play The Master Builder, While We're Young is an acutely observed but emotionally underpowered comedy drama about a forty-something couple, who become intoxicated by the vivacity and carefree abandon of the younger generation.

Writer-director Noah Baumbach, who was Oscar nominated for his screenplay The Squid And The Whale, is well versed in the gaping chasms that separate hip techno-savvy youngsters from their parents.

Here, he elegantly subverts stereotypes by contrasting the unedifying pastimes of his world-weary protagonists, who are slaves to their smart phones and on-demand entertainment services, with the whims of two twenty-something dreamers, who play board games, keep in shape at hip hop exercise classes and have re-appropriated vintage clutter as their own.

Like Baumbach's earlier work, this occasionally spiky portrait of middle-aged malaise is peppered with polished one-liners and elicits strong performances from the ensemble cast.

Josh Srebnick (Ben Stiller) is a talented filmmaker, who cannot muster the energy or enthusiasm to complete a documentary that has consumed the past 10 years of his life.

He is stuck in a rut with his wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts), who offers support when she isn't producing the pictures of her father, the legendary director Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin).

Their best friends Marina (Maria Dizzia) and Fletcher (Adam Horowitz), who have just become parents, try in vain to convince Josh and Cornelia to bolster their happy home with a child but the Srebnicks maintain they are happy as they are.

By chance, they meet aspiring twenty-something filmmaker Jamie (Adam Driver) and his kooky girlfriend Darby (Amanda Seyfried), whose lust for life is infectious.

"This is just like my record collection," gushes Josh as he salivates over shelves of 12 inch vinyls in Jamie's apartment, "except mine are CDs."

Flattered by Jamie's effusive praise for his work, Josh neglects his long-gestated feature to become a mentor to the younger filmmaker.

When Josh finally musters the courage to show his father-in-law a shambolic rough cut of his unfinished documentary, Leslie's fair criticism cuts deep.

"You just showed me a six and a half hour film that feels seven hours too long," observes the wily old coot.

At a trim 97 minutes, While We're Young certainly doesn't outstay its welcome.

Stiller and Watts are an attractive pairing, verbally sparring with each other including a trippy shamanic vomiting ritual that culminates in an unfortunate kiss.

Driver and Seyfried embrace their roles with fervour, imbuing their bright young things with warmth and likeability.

Baumbach's film gradually runs out of steam and a protracted final sequence at an awards ceremony doesn't provide either the closure or crescendo that we or the characters crave.

Life is full of disappointments and in some respects, While We're Young is one of them.

6/10

Damon Smith