What really is adulthood? There are certain trappings of adulthood—a job, a mortgage, a 401K. But for most people, the true “adult” signifier is having children, that moment you go from being someone’s kid to having your own. But what if you’re 40ish and have no children? What if you’ve never truly felt like an adult, at least partly because the prospect terrifies you? That’s basically the question explored by Noah Baumbach’s funny, sad, and sharply observant While We’re Young.
Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are a happily married couple, both in their 40s. He’s a documentary filmmaker with one minor success under his belt; but his second film, which focuses on the teachings of a Noam Chomsky-like philosopher (one of the film’s many nods to Woody Allen’s Crimes and Misdemeanors) has been languishing in production for ten years. As for Cornelia, she works for her father (Charles Grodin), a famous and successful documentary filmmaker, but perhaps feels a bit overshadowed by both men in her life.
There are two disruptive events in Josh and Cornelia’s lives: First, their best friends (Maria Dizzia and Adam Horowitz) have a baby and seem perfectly content to slip into a life of early bedtimes and “Mommy and Me” activities. (The fact that Fletcher, the husband, is played by Ad Rock from the Beastie Boys is a sly joke—even the eternal party boy has to eventually grow up.) Then, Josh meets an ardent young documentary filmmaker named Jamie (Adam Driver) and his wife Darby (Amanda Seyfried). Jamie seems to be a big fan of Josh’s work and he flatters him expertly, asking lots of questions and appearing genuinely impressed by him. Soon Josh is getting a bike and wearing a vintage fedora, a la Jamie, and he and Cornelia are attending raucous street parties and dropping hallucinogenics with their new friends.
One of Baumbach’s genius observations here: While Josh and Cornelia have fully embraced technology—they’re glued to their iPhones—Jamie and Darby have self-consciously appropriated a more retro vibe. They listen to records, make their own food and furniture—hell, they even married young.
The cast is great: Stiller digs deep into Josh’s vanity and need for validation, while still making him likeable enough to serve as the film’s protagonist. Watts makes Cornelia funny, sexy, and a bit lost—whether she’s attending a hip hop dance class or tripping her mind out at that party. Seyfried’s Cornelia at first seems like a passive, flower child type, but proves to be sharper than everyone around her. And Driver, as always, is a force of nature. Who wouldn’t be seduced by his loose-limbed, cockeyed charm?
In a way, the film’s plot twist—that Jamie might not be all he appears—was my least favorite part of While We’re Young. To me, both Josh’s fascination with Jamie and his slow embrace of adulthood are subject-matter enough. But then again, I have a very high tolerance for movies with no plot. And While We’re Young gives us lots to relate to, laugh at, and chew on—with or without that plot twist.