Ben Stiller is at ease with unease, as usual
Ben Stiller has never been comfortable with the idea of being part of a branded generation, even though he gave his Generation X cohort its own movie with Reality Bites, his 1995 directorial debut.
He seems ill at ease even on the poster for that film, standing next to Winona Ryder and Ethan Hawke in a business suit and tie, unlike the casual attire of his co-stars. It’s a look he continues to favour today, at the age of 51, with grey now accenting his black hair.
Stiller always seems like a time traveller from another era in his movies, attempting to fit into environments that are slightly alien to him.
He’s adept at the comedy of awkwardness, building franchises out of his characters in the Night at the Museum and Meet the Fockers properties.
It’s also why he can really get under the skin of his title character in Brad’s Status, Mike White’s movie about a middle-aged father grappling with feelings of mediocrity as he attempts to guide his brilliant Harvard-bound son, played by Austin Abrams.
Brad’s done OK in life, running a virtuous non-profit agency, but all his college buddies have become rich and famous.
“I think that he’s a guy that I can identify with,” Stiller agrees, in an interview during TIFF 2017, where Brad’s Status, now opening in regular theatres, had its world premiere.
“When Brad was younger, he probably had this idea of what he wanted to do but then was not as in touch with what was really going on. He probably should have acknowledged earlier on that those (fame and fortune) things were things that he wanted also, that mattered to him.
“People get hit with these issues at this point in their life, and I’ve had my own version of it. Eventually it’s going to catch up with you. And it’s not a bad thing; it’s good that it catches up with you, because that’s when you become more of a real person. Because you’re getting in touch with it.”
Does this give Stiller, the father of two teenagers, some sympathy for millennials, the current poster children for societal discontent?
It certainly does. Like dads immemorial, he worries about the com- ing-up generation of teens and 20-somethings spending too much time watching things and not enough time doing things. For Baby Boomers and Gen Xers, the parental fear was that kids were watching too much television; that concern seems to have accelerated for millennials with the ubiquity of the internet, social media and handheld digital devices.
“I think the Gen Xers had a little bit more of a chance to find their footing, in a way, because it was at the beginning of technology changing. But I think for the younger generation — my kids are 12 and 15 — it’s really hard, because they don’t know anything other than the iPhones and iPads and (similar) stuff in front of them.
“I don’t envy them in that way, because to see everything, to see success put in front of them, it’s like, how do you get there? What’s the shortest way to get there? Oh, it should be happening right now! I should get my story up and — boom! — get my clip on YouTube, or whatever the hell it is.”
I tell Stiller a story his friend and fellow actor Greta Gerwig told during a TIFF Q&A, explaining why she placed Saoirse Ronan’s schoolgirl character of Lady Bird, Gerwig’s directorial debut, in the years 2002-3.
Gerwig wanted to situate her narrative in an era prior to the advent of smartphones, when people had to make more of an effort to speak with each other rather than just texting each other. “Right, yes!” Stiller says. “Life has changed storytelling. You watch any movie in the ’70s and people could go to a phone booth. Great phone-booth scenes don’t exist any more.
“I’m doing a prison thing now, a miniseries that takes place in prison ( Escape at Dannemora). And it’s cool because they have phones, phone banks. You just don’t see that any more. Literally, when they want to make calls, it’s a line of phones.”
Prior to filming Brad’s Status, Stiller starred in The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected), a dramedy by his friend Noah Baumbach which premiered in competition at this year’s Cannes Film Festival and which is destined for release later this year on Netflix.
There, Stiller’s character Matthew in the film is a very successful businessman, not unlike the kind of guy whom Brad deeply envies in Brad’s Status.
And yet Matthew has his own issues with family and self-loathing, as he battles and banters with his father (Dustin Hoffman) and brother (Adam Sandler).
Going from Matthew to Brad was quite the trip, Stiller says.
“These two guys are in very different places. Noah wrote the part (of Matthew) with me in mind and when he sent me the script, I was like, ‘Really? Is this me?’ And he goes, ‘Look, I see you — this is an aspect of you that’s interesting because it’s an aspect of your life I feel I see.’ And he sees it as someone who knows me.
“It took me a little while to get my head around that character and to figure out where the empathy is for this character . . . once it clicked in for me, it was interesting because then I saw what (Baumbach) saw and it made it simpler to approach the character. I saw the similarities in me that I couldn’t really see, myself.”
If Stiller ever did completely figure himself out, it might be to the detriment of the fidgety reality he brings to his characters.
But there seems no danger of that ever happening. Peter Howell is the Star’s movie critic. His column usually runs Fridays.