Back to youth

While We're Young Director: Noah Baumbach photo: Sam Levy American filmmaker Noah Baumbach is back with a new film at Norwegian cinemas. Let's start with a quick review of his career so far. Baumbach debuted in 1995 with Kicking and Screaming, 26 years old. However, the big breakthrough came only ten years and a few films later, with the partly autobiographical The Squid and the Whale. Here he portrayed the break between a New York writer couple in the 1980 century, played by Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, from their children's point of view. Jesse Eisenberg made his first major film role as the oldest son, which is probably Baumbach's alter ego in the film. Eisenberg has, as you know later played in Zombieland (2009) and The Social Network (2010), and soon he will be seen in Joachim Trier Louder Than Bombs. The Squid and the Whale placed Baumbach among America's most exciting independent filmmakers, who, with his neurotic-intellectual mix of drama and comedy, made him appear a natural and worthy heir to Woody Allen himself. Baumbach also has a certain relationship with Wes Anderson, and he has even co-authored Anderson's Livet under vann med Steve Zissou (2004) and Den fantastiske Mikkel Rev (2009). After The Squid and the Whale wrote and directed Baumbach Margot at the Wedding (2007), starring Nicole Kidman and Jennifer Jason Leigh in the roles of the action's central siblings. The latter, who at this time was the filmmaker's spouse, developed with Baumbach himself the story of his next film Greenberg (2010). This one tells of an ex-musician around 40, played by Ben Stiller, who borrows his brother's house in Los Angeles after a stay in a psychiatric clinic. Life may have imitated the art when Greta Gerwig, who embodies the younger woman the main character initiates a relationship, became Baumbach's boyfriend in reality – while Jason Leigh had the role of ex-boyfriend in the film. Baumbach and Gerwig then collaborated on his next film Frances Ha (2013). They co-wrote the script, in addition to the fact that Gerwig largely carried the film in the role of the not very successful dancer Frances. Maybe it's just her own uncritical crush on boyfriend generation Baumbach reflects on in her new movie. hipsters. Now Baumbach is premiering While We're Young, where Ben Stiller again has the lead role. The film opens with some posters that reproduce a dialogue from Ibsen Builder Solness: Solness bothers so much of the younger people in the office that he has closed his door – whereupon the younger Miss Hilde suggests that he might let them in instead. And that's exactly what Stiller's character does in this film. Here he plays the documentary filmmaker Josh Srebnick, who has worked for almost a decade on a film project he still does not see the end of. After giving a lecture, Josh is approached by a XNUMX-year-old named Jamie (Adam Driver) who expresses his admiration for his work. Our main character falls both for the flatterer and for the young man's general and infectious enthusiasm, and soon both he and his wife Cornelia (Naomi Watts) become close friends with Jamie and his spouse Darby (Amanda Seyfried). That they are also married is one of many peculiarities Josh and Cornelia find charming in the free-spirited hipster couple. Josh is also inspired by Jamie's generosity, and offers to help his new friend with his own documentary project. In this connection, Jamie also makes contact with Cornelia's father, a famous filmmaker who was once a kind of mentor for Josh. Through their new friends, Josh and Cornelia come into contact with their own youth, while the childless few-and-forty-year-olds have less and less in common with their old best friends and newlywed parents Marina (Maria Dizzia) and Fletcher (Adam Horovitz from rap group Beastie Boys). Eventually, however, Josh discovers some more calculating and exploitative aspects of Jamie, and that the documentary he is helping to realize hardly lives up to his strict ideals of truth within the genre. Pragmatism vs. idealism. Artistic ambitions, lack of success and jealousy associated with this are pervasive themes in Baumbach's films, and they are all prominent in While We're Young. This is how the movie can be reminiscent The Squid and the Whale, where the parents' divorce was partly due to the imbalance in their respective careers. Josh is tormented by the fact that his young prostitute turns out to be more career-conscious and determined than himself – even beyond certain moral boundaries. Based on the ethics of the documentary, the film here leads to an interesting discussion of pragmatism versus idealism, although one might object that this is treated somewhat superficially. The most tangible resemblance to Baumbach's previous film Frances Ha (who also had Adam Driver on the cast) is the portrayal of New York's hipster environment. But there are also some obvious differences between the two. Where hipster Frances had a clear ambition but lacked the ability to perform, Jamie has more than enough of both. IN While We're Young moreover, the environment is portrayed from the perspective of a couple in their forties – ie people of the same age as Baumbach himself. This distance brings a more critical attitude to this culture, despite the fact that Josh and Cornelia are largely seduced by the zeal and interest of the young friend couple. It also helps While We're Young to a better movie than Frances Ha, who was a bit admiring and self-infatuated with his approach to the hipsters. Perhaps it is precisely her own uncritical crush on the boyfriend's generation, Baumbach reflects on in her new film, which in that case is more personal than one can first imagine. At the same time, it is an apt and amusing description of the now middle-aged "Generation X" with its persistent quest for eternal youth. Author. While We're Young is admittedly noticeably weaker than Greenberg, Baumbach's previous collaboration with Ben Stiller. This, in turn, is a partially underrated gem in the director's catalog, which shamefully did not get Norwegian cinema distribution. While We're Young does not have the same tenderness and melancholy attention as Greenberg, but is instead more obviously humorous. Furthermore, Josh is a more typical Ben-Stiller character than Roger Greenberg, who felt healthier and more interesting for the actor. Also, it can be objected that the female characters this time are noticeably weaker than you are used to seeing in Baumbach's films – although both Naomi Watts and Amanda Seyfried make the most of the roles they are assigned. Nevertheless While We're Young a further confirmation of Noah Baumbach's considerable talent and relevance as a storyteller, and the objections must be seen in the context of being evaluated against his impressive cinematography. Baumbach is what movie academics like to call a real author, in the sense that he makes films with a clear signature in form and content. Like compatriot Alexander Payne, he shows that the borderland between drama and comedy can be a nice place to talk about serious things – something they both do with a deep empathy for their characters. Ambition, rivalry and envy are already mentioned, but also shattered illusions, dysfunctional families and the challenges of getting older are themes that recur in Baumbach's films. While We're Young takes care of all of these, without it being perceived as a repetition of the director's previous merits. While We're Young starts as mentioned with some well-chosen lines from Henrik Ibsen Builder Solness. Oscar Wilde's famous statement that "Youth is wasted on the young" could possibly have been a shorter and equally appropriate quote, unless this was already stated as a reply in Greenberg – where Ben Stiller in the title role repeats that "Life is wasted on ... people". Fortunately, Noah Baumbach shows with his humanist films that this is not correct, although he obviously understands what lies behind such a statement. Huser is a film critic in Ny Tid. alexhuser@ Gmail.com