Growing Young, Waking Up: New Baumbach Film Resonates

The question of whether older people can navigate the social media-and-iPhone-heavy world of today's young adults often surfaces in news stories, classrooms, and daily conversations. Noah Baumbach's new film, "While We're Young” grapples poignantly with that question. The film, which centers around the relationships of two couples from different generations, focuses on the disconnect between aging and struggling to fit in and stay relevant.

The premises are deeply resonant with modern life. Documentarian Josh (Ben Stiller) and producer Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are happily married fortysomethings living in New York City. While they seem to be in a rut—Josh has been developing the same intellectual film for 10 years, and Cornelia works for her famous filmmaker father, Leslie (Charles Grodin)—their life works for them. They do not have kids, although they have tried several times, but they tell themselves that they are fine without any children, even as their couple-friends become parents and seem to have their life plans figured out. Yet remarks that “you should be parents” and “you would make great parents” not only make Josh and Cornelia visibly uncomfortable but shake up how they see themselves and their life trajectory.

When aspiring filmmaker Jamie (Adam Driver) and his wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried)—the younger couple in the film—enter the scene, the child-sized hole in Josh and Cornelia’s life is filled with this pair of caricaturish, hipster 25-year-olds. In their vintage Bushwick loft, Jamie and Darby prefer vinyl records to illegal downloads, homemade avocado ice cream to takeout, and board games to television, while Josh and Cornelia can’t seem to put their iPhones away. “It used to be [rude], but now it’s accepted,” one adult remarks during a dinner scene in which all four middle-aged guests are on their phones. In these moments, Baumbach successfully inverts the technology-obsessed youth stereotype. Even if his allusions are incessant, they’re downright funny.

Take, for example, a montage scene in which Cornelia attends a hip-hop class with Darby, and Josh and Jamie buy fedoras and ride their retro bicycles through the city’s streets. Once the music starts, Cornelia cannot figure out the moves—“What kind of class is this?” she frantically asks Darby—and, crippled with arthritis in his knees, Josh lags behind Jamie on the bikes until he can’t ride anymore and has to walk his bike onto the sidewalk. Still, Cornelia and Josh want everything that Darby and Jamie appear to have: the carefree attitudes, the fun, the vibrancy that seems to come with youth and possibility. Much to the chagrin of their same-aged friends, Cornelia and Josh eschew weekend trips and brunches to spend time with Darby and Jamie.

Indeed, the actors in “While We’re Young” have the authenticity of their characters down pat. Josh and Cornelia’s marriage feels like a story from The New York Times’ “Modern Love Column.” They seem to ask, “Despite our age and the example set by our couple-friends, how do we spice up our life, keep our relationship current, and still figure out what we’re doing?” Driver—the film world’s go-to hipster—and Seyfried, for their parts, play their roles unironically, especially when Jamie’s ambitions and lack of generosity persist and Darby has to decide how not to live in his shadow. Baumbach says that growing up with films like “Tootsie” and “Working Girl” influenced the “While We’re Young” script, through which he hopes to channel how those films focused primarily on people.

Ultimately, then, “While We’re Young” is a portrait about the characters as they find their place—accepting that place and what is missing—and move forward accordingly. As Josh and Cornelia navigate life’s twists and turns, both good and bad, they must grow up, adjust, and make the best of it—and, in their way, Darby and Jamie must also grow up and learn what it means to age. Their life and the decisions they make, played out in  “While We’re Young,” remind audience members to laugh.