Aging is an inevitable fact of life, an unavoidable process that slowly but surely changes us physically, if not always emotionally. Thirty- and forty-somethings may no longer experience the feelings of invincibility and idealism they had in their twenties, and they may be surprised every day by the new aches and pains of their bodies, or the lines on their faces when they look at themselves in photographs. They may go to bed earlier than they once did, and their days of late-night parties and frivolity prove fewer and farther between as adult responsibilities take over. Even if it seems as if no time has passed at all, a person can blink and twenty years have passed, the man or woman looking back at them from the mirror no longer matching up to how they feel on the inside. These existential thoughts were clearly on 45-year-old filmmaker Noah Baumbach's (2013's "Frances Ha") mind when he sat down to write "While We're Young," and they shine through with resounding truthfulness and humor.
44-year-old college professor/struggling documentarian Josh Srebnick (Ben Stiller) and his wife, 43-year-old part-time producer Cornelia (Naomi Watts), live what they believe is a happy, comfortable life together in Brooklyn. Granted, not all of their personal and professional aspirations have been met, but when they fail to click with the newborn baby of longtime pals Fletcher (Adam Horovitz) and Marina (Maria Dizzia), they begin to wonder if it wasn't fate that they were never able to become parents. When two of Josh's classmates, married 25-year-olds Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), invite him and Cornelia out to eat, it begins an unlikely friendship between the foursome. Josh likes the feeling of being admired by Jamie, who claims to be a fan of his little-seen last documentary, but he is also intoxicated by their lax, hopeful attitude and virtually care-free spontaneity. He and Cornelia do not realize how much they've changed until they start hanging out with the much-younger Jamie and Darby. They might want to go back to the way they were when they, too, were in their mid-twenties, but the hard reality is much different than how they romanticize it in their minds.
See Dustin Putman, TheFilmFile.com. for full review
