STRIFE AND MID-LIFE
Jamie professes huge admiration for Josh’s work and enthuses over just about anything the older guy says. And almost everything about the younger couple surprises and impresses Josh and Cornelia; here are sharp kids who prefer vinyl, use an electric typewriter, ride bikes around town, reject Facebook, married young and impulsively head off to explore secret parts of the city. Feeling reinvigorated, Josh wants to spend every hour possible with them.
Unfortunately, some of the film’s little side trips are hokey and would have been right at home in a mainstream Hollywood comedy: The couples go to a guru’s communal gathering where they spend most of their time retching into buckets after drinking some unholy concoction, and Cornelia joins Darby at a hip-hop dance class. Furthermore, the female characters are not nearly as fleshed out as the men. Other than supposedly being a documentary producer, Cornelia seems dedicated to nothing professionally or intellectually and so comes off as a void other than in some emotional outbursts with her husband. Presented as a creator of homemade ice creams, Darby is even more opaque. We know from his previous work that Baumbach is capable of writing much more interesting female characters than these, so the gender imbalance here is disappointing.
Meanwhile, the relationship between the men becomes more complicated. Forever deferential, Jamie nonetheless embarks on a film project of his own that eventually impinges upon Josh’s work, notably regarding the involvement of Josh’s filmmaker father-in-law and even the intellectual star of Josh’s film.
This act of perceived betrayal sends Josh into a frenzy, culminating in a climactic showdown in which Josh confronts his one-time friend during a gala celebration of his father-in-law’s career. But even though Josh is right in feeling used by the younger man, whose defence is along the modern lines that everything belongs to everybody when it comes to art and intellectual property, Josh’s own failure to have done anything with his own work lends his rage a hollow feel.
Stiller does a mildly nebbish shtick throughout, while Driver pours on enthusiasm. Seeing Grodin in a sometimes caustic turn makes one hope he starts appearing more frequently again in films. – Reuters/ Hollywood Reporter