2015 film by Nancy Meyers
The Intern is a 2015 American buddy comedy-drama film directed, written, and produced by Nancy Meyers. The film stars Robert De Niro, Anne Hathaway, and Rene Russo, with supporting performances from Anders Holm, Andrew Rannells, Adam DeVine, and Zack Pearlman. The plot follows a 70-year-old widower who becomes a senior intern at a fashion website, where he forms an unlikely friendship with the company's workaholic CEO.
The film was released on September 25, 2015, by Warner Bros. It received mixed reviews from critics but was a box office success, grossing $195 million worldwide against a $35 million production budget.
Plot
70-year-old widower Ben Whittaker, a retired executive from DEX One, considers retirement too boring. He applies to fill the newly conceived position of senior intern at About The Fit, a fast-growing e-commerce fashion startup in Brooklyn.
Ben impresses everyone and is one of five senior interns hired. He is assigned to work with CEO Jules Ostin, who is somewhat skeptical at first and ignores him. However, Ben wins over his co-workers with his congeniality and his helpful advice on life and work.
One morning, Ben organizes a messy desk Jules complained about, winning her good graces. After work, he notices Jules's chauffeur drinking, persuades him to leave and drives Jules home himself, a role he will fill in days to come.
But on their first drive together Ben asks Jules several personal questions, and she asks her VP, Cameron, to reassign him. However, that evening they bond when Jules finds out that he worked for almost 40 years in the same building where About the Fit is based. The next morning Jules learns that Cameron had replaced Ben as driver with Doris. A horrible driver, she almost crashes. Jules apologizes and begs Ben to come back, and he does.
Jules starts assigning him work, and he is able to help lighten her workload. Ben also starts a relationship with About the Fit's in-house masseuse, Fiona. When Jules accidentally sends a scathing email to her mom, Ben volunteers to take some coworkers to break into her mother's house to delete it from her computer. They narrowly avoid getting caught by the police in the process.
Ben also gets to know Jules' family. Her husband, Matt, gave up his own career to be a stay-at-home dad to their daughter, Paige, when About The Fit started to take off. However, the marriage is slowly breaking apart as the couple grows more distant. When driving Paige home from a party, Ben discovers that Matt is having an affair.
Meanwhile, Jules is under pressure to give up her post of CEO to someone outside of the company, as her investors fear she is unable to cope with the unanticipatedly high workload. Believing it will give her more time at home with her family, Jules is willing to consider the proposal.
She asks Ben to accompany her on a business trip to San Francisco to interview a potential CEO candidate. While there Jules reveals that she knows about Matt's cheating, but has not confronted him about it because she was not ready to deal with it.
To buy herself time to save her marriage, Jules decides to hire the prospective CEO. But Ben greatly encourages her to think about how much effort and passion she has used to build About The Fit. Matt unexpectedly drops in at the office and urges her to reconsider, saying that he is sorry and ashamed, and wants to support her in her dreams.
Jules goes out looking for Ben, wanting to tell him that she has changed her mind, and finds him enjoying his tai chi exercise group. She finally lets herself relax and joins him in practicing tai chi, an act symbolic of her finding balance in her life.
Production
Development and casting
Originally set up at Paramount Pictures, The Intern was planned to feature Tina Fey and Michael Caine in the lead roles.[3] Handed over to Warner Bros., Fey was replaced by Reese Witherspoon as the attached star, though Witherspoon left the film on January 15, 2014, due to scheduling conflicts.[4] On February 7, 2014, Anne Hathaway was in final talks to replace Witherspoon in the lead role.[5] Stephen Goldblatt was set as director of photography.[6] On June 23, 2014, Zack Pearlman joined the cast of the film.[7]
Filming
Principal photography began on June 23, 2014, in Brooklyn, New York City,[8] where De Niro was spotted on the set of the film.[9] On October 2, 2014, director Nancy Meyers announced that filming was completed.[10]
Reception
Box office
The Intern grossed $75.7 million in North America and $118.8 million in other territories for a worldwide total of $194.6 million, against a net production budget of $35 million.[1] The film opened alongside Hotel Transylvania 2 and was projected to gross $15–20 million in its opening weekend.[11] It grossed $17.7 million, finishing second at the box office behind Hotel Transylvania 2 ($48.5 million).[11]
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 59% of 202 critics' reviews are positive, with an average rating of 5.7/10. The website's consensus reads: "The Intern doesn't do enough with its timely premise, but benefits from the unorthodox chemistry of its talented leads."[12] Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 51 out of 100, based on 36 critics, indicating "mixed or average" reviews.[13]
Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three and a half out of four stars, stating, "With some genuinely insightful dialogue, a number of truly funny bits of physical business, and small scenes allowing us to get know and like a half-dozen supporting players,"[14]
Manohla Dargis of The New York Times wrote that the film was similar to Meyers's other works, stating that it was "frothy, playful, homogeneous, routinely maddening and generally pretty irresistible." Despite criticizing Meyers's screenplay and "conflicted ideas about powerful women," Dargis praised the casting of De Niro, stating he "owns the movie from the moment he opens his mouth." Hathaway's role was derided as "less of a character and more of a fast-walking, speed-talking collection of gender grievances."[15]
Clem Bastow, writing for The Guardian, suggested that poor reviews for the film were primarily coming from men, who form the overwhelming majority of film critics.[16] Bastow further suggested that female critics would "feel the need to go hard on certain films for women" such as The Intern.[17]
Director Quentin Tarantino viewed the film as Oscar-worthy, stating:
It does seem to be to some degree there's a boom or bust aspect when it comes to Hollywood when it comes to female directors. There becomes an era when there's a lot working then that settles down and there's a dry period—but frankly, maybe I'm just talking shit because the thing is there are female directors. Maybe they're not being the ones that are being asked to be on The Hollywood Reporter roundtable. One of my favorite movies this last year was Nancy Meyers' The Intern. They're not considering that for the Oscars even though I think Robert De Niro gave one of the best performances this year in that movie. I thought the script was actually one of her best. Right up there with It's Complicated. They're not asking her to be part of the discussion.[18]
Accolades
Remake
Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone announced on January 27, 2020, that she will produce the Hindi remake of The Intern, also playing the female lead role, but the remake's production was postponed mainly due to the COVID-19 pandemic.[22] Rishi Kapoor was initially cast as the male lead, but after his sudden death in April 2020 due to leukemia, he was replaced by Amitabh Bachchan in March 2021. Principal photography began in November 2021.[23]
On July 5, 2022, the first episode of the Japanese television remake of The Intern,[24] called Unicorn ni Notte or Riding a Unicorn, released its first episode with Hidetoshi Nishijima in the De Niro role and Mei Nagano in the Hathaway role.[25]
