some of you undoubtedly miss my walls of text from ages past. walls which, some say, can still be found in forgotten corners of the RIA boards, as if standing guard against an army of ghost invaders, or against time itself.
anyway I'm going to review The Intern (7.2 on imdb). First I will sum it up in 1 sentence as a TL;DR
Robert DeNiro does great playing an ex-retiree working for a startup internet company, but about 3/4 through the writing falls apart and he's just enabling his workaholic female boss (anne hathaway) to avoid any responsibility for her homelife.
Now for the real spoilers: two (ok maybe 3) scenes stand out to me when it comes to saying why this movie falls short. And this movie starts out really great and does well for a while, but then it loses it.
Scene 1 -- Bob deniro is in bar with his boss and fellow interns. She gets drunk and condescends to them about how Bob the 70 year old is the real man and it's so sad that men have been neglected due to feminism, to the point that they turn into the other male interns. Ok, the writers are making a good point. Not a bad scene in itself.
Scene 2 -- Bob deniro is on a business trip with his boss, they talk about the fact that her husband is cheating on her. She is looking at it from different angles, because the business trip is about getting another CEO to take over so she can spend more time at home. He says, I hate to be the feminist here, but don't give up the CEO position just to keep your husband from cheating on you. You don't have to be a feminist to make that point, feminists didn't invent divorcing cheaters, but also it's disingenuous. more on that later.
Scene 3 -- Anne Hathaways' husband is in her office, confessing and pleading with her not to give up her CEO position just because he cheated, because he feels guilty. She had already decided not to give up anything. This scene is just to sum up the fantasy of zero female responsibility and make sure lead female gets best possible result.
Now here's what all this adds up to. First, of course it's not her fault he cheated on her. But it is her fault he got to the point that he wanted to. The backstory is, he was more successful than her but gave up the position to be a stay at home dad so she could run her company full time. Then he's talking about being stressed out, and her not having enough time for the family. He keeps talking about her getting another CEO so they can fix the homelife. The film continually highlights her being an antisocial workaholic with bad priorities.
So if he hadn't cheated, if he had just said, hey I want to cheat, and that means this marriage is shit, so I'll just divorce instead of cheating -- then all the blame would be on her. She would have had to seriously consider prioritizing her kid and her husband over being in 100% control of her company.
The cheating is just used as a plot device to avoid the female lead having to change or compromise or do anything besides whatever she wants. And the writers have Bob deniro, the manly dynamo of the film's cast, say fuck that guy, as if to remove all empathy for anyone other than the main female lead.
How does Scene 1 play into this? First, the scene by itself is good because it shows that her concern for the interns is superficial -- if she really cared she wouldn't be condescending to them. She snubs males while talking about the plight of males. It would be clever but the rest of the plot disagrees with it -- she literally neglects her husband's perspective and that is not portrayed as ironic, but as a good thing. Also in scene 2 they give the most cursory recognition of what it could do to her daughter if her marriage fails. 1 line each. But none of her actions from then on are about saving her marriage or family.
Second off, that scene highlights something about bob's character -- he is the ultimate white knight. Hathaway says in that scene, they don't make them like they used to, look at bob here, and look at you guys (psh). Bob never displays any serious character flaws, always has women fawning over him, is an expert in everything, mentors everyone, has great lines -- a sort of mary sue (marty stu?) character. A shallow perfect character which is typical of bad writing. Deniro plays it great but that's still what it is. And its' written to be ultimately supportive of the female lead, to prop up and validate her. The hilarious thing is they make light of how he uses handkerchiefs and this is a throwback to chivalry -- which is a very role oriented thing directly opposed to feminist ideals.
So ultimately the message here is, real women put their job and their personal ambitions ahead of everything else, and real men, truly noble, strong, balanced men like sir Robert of House Deniro, also put those women and their jobs and their ambitions, ahead of everything else. And luckily the husband 'redeems himself' by also capitulating, saying forget the family, forget the kid, do whatever you want. Other perspectives are glossed over briefly, as if to satisfy the feminist conscience, while the ending firmly reiterates the 'you go girl' sentiment. basically it's fuck man-bitches, get money, feminist remix.
I'm not even mad, it's just funny because this is a fantasy engaged by so many people in my generation, and apparently inspiring successful, million dollar movies. The idea that oppression and social injustice, real or imagined or somewhere in between, makes it ok to put yourself first, neglect commitments and treat people like shit. Honestly I think people store up a lot of pain inside, and it warps their perception of things and feeds delusions, and movies like this are the result.
Topic: llamavore's minirant movie review emporium (Read 7357 times)
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