Half of the film’s stale and predictable, while the other half’s a mess.
While We’re Young is a poorly made film, tackling two tales in one while failing to succeed in either. The film could be summarized as: middle aged couple starts hanging out with younger couple to feel young again, learns young people are “evil”, and begin accepting their age. The material in While We’re Young is overused and stale; the humor is incredibly soft on the punches, as well as being highly predictable. The jokes range mostly on a) comedy about getting old or b) how “wacky” young people are. Such material has been done dozens of times before, except with better comedy and less lethargic material. When not focusing on relationships and age, While We’re Young takes a stab at examining the changing direction of documentary films. The result is an over-blown mess which feels more pretentious than insightful, particularly when muddled with the film’s stale comedy.
While We’re Young is a poorly made film, tackling two tales in one while failing to succeed in either. The film could be summarized as: middle aged couple starts hanging out with younger couple to feel young again, learns young people are “evil”, and begin accepting their age. The material in While We’re Young is overused and stale; the humor is incredibly soft on the punches, as well as being highly predictable. The jokes range mostly on a) comedy about getting old or b) how “wacky” young people are. Such material has been done dozens of times before, except with better comedy and less lethargic material. When not focusing on relationships and age, While We’re Young takes a stab at examining the changing direction of documentary films. The result is an over-blown mess which feels more pretentious than insightful, particularly when muddled with the film’s stale comedy.
Yet despite these noticeable flaws, While We’re Young’s root problem arises from one of its main cast. I’m not sure if it’s due to his recent casting as infuriating characters, or the actor himself, but I’ve grown quite hardhearted towards Adam Driver. This is his second role to really piss me off (the first being in What If aka The F Word); his character Jamie is everything I dislike in a person: self-centered, egotistical, insensitive, highly manipulative, apathetically ambitious, hypocritical and a backstabber…similar to his character (though far more evil) from What If. At least here Driver is supposed to be playing a complete asshole…YET While We’re Young tries to rectify his actions with a bizarre sum up of how it’s in his “nature” as a young person. “He’s not evil, just young” Ben Stiller’s character remarks during the finale; no Mr. Stiller, I’m pretty sure he’s evil. To claim Jamie’s actions are simply his generations’ way is offensive to actually good-natured young people (not to mention his age of 26 is cutting close on the “young” department). If in three years I start acting similar to Jamie, I give people full permission to punch some sense into me! With a stale mess of a plot and a character worthy of bitter loathing, While We’re Young’s only success was making me leave the theater 12 bucks poorer and frustratingly annoyed.
