While We're Young Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		1.0
Overall		3.0

While We're Young Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman July 1, 2015

There comes a time in most adults’ lives when they look around and suddenly realize there are a lot of younger adults in the general population. This may not seem like an especially revelatory comment, especially for those who are in their twenties or thirties, but when that dreaded “middle age” syndrome sets in, one of its tangential issues is noticing the seemingly increasing amount of those who haven’t yet passed into near decrepitude. That aspect of aging provides some comedic subtext for the winning if at times slightly shaky While We’re Young. Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia Srebnick (Naomi Watts) are fortysomething marrieds in Manhattan, coming to terms with the fact that they’re still childless (despite unsuccessful attempts to get pregnant), something that distances them from their best friends Marina (Maria Dizzia) and Fletcher (Adam Horovitz), a couple who have just had a baby. Josh and Cornelia rationalize their situation, saying that it’s all really for the best, and that being childless at least affords them the opportunity to be spontaneous—except that there’s a notable lack of spontaneity in their lives. Josh is a documentary filmmaker who is struggling to complete his second feature after several years of working on it, a frustrating situation that is only exacerbated by the fact that Cornelia works for her extremely successful documentarian father, Leslie Breitbart (Charles Grodin). Josh helps to make ends meet by teaching a class at a local community college, and after one of his (lackluster) presentations one day, he meets two young folks supposedly “auditing” the class, Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby Massey (Amanda Seyfried), twentysomething marrieds who seem to be everything Josh and Cornelia wish they could be.

A spur of the moment (self) invitation hooks Jamie and Darby up with Josh and Cornelia, and Jamie’s interest in making documentaries helps to cement his relationship with Josh, whom it is obvious Jamie hopes will become a mentor. Writer-director Noah Baumbach starts playing with generational preconceptions almost from the get go, however, with Jamie and Darby willfully “retro”, to the point that they only have long playing record albums and VHS tapes (the horror!) in their rather improbably luxe Brooklyn flat. (A manual typewriter helps to complete the image.) Josh and Cornelia are taken by the younger couple’s twee proclivities, but in trying to talk about Jamie and Darby with Marina and Fletcher, their embarrassment at having friends that much younger than they are becomes evident.

While We’re Young finds an easier and more fertile target with the comedy inherent in this transgenerational element, though there’s a kind of sad aspect as well, as Josh starts to go overboard in an attempt to reclaim whatever youth he feels he’s lost and which Jamie has come to personify. These attempts probably only become sadder when some ravages of age show up on Josh's doorstep. Baumbach muddies the water somewhat in any case by giving Jamie a less than completely honorable persona. Paying fewer dividends is a whole somewhat soap operatic element dealing with Josh's stalled career and his contentious relationship with his very famous father-in- law.

Baumbach is nonetheless surprisingly facile at navigating the tonal imbalances of While We’re Young, a talent that is perhaps nowhere more strongly on display than in a patently bizarre sequence where Josh and Cornelia go on a psychedelic “vision quest” of sorts, a scene that would seem ripe for almost farcical comedic treatment, but which is given surprising bite and dramatic nuance. Still, the film tends to traverse uneasily between its disparate plot points and tones, with things getting more and more unsteady as a number of too florid interchanges paves the way for a supposed catharsis.

While We’re Young may have in fact been a bit more focused had the whole documentary filmmaking subplot been altered, or at least minimized. Josh’s long gestating project offers a suitable summation of his stalled life while giving a wonderful cameo to Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul and Mary fame, here playing a kind of Saul Alinsky-esque provocateur who is the subject of Josh’s film. But Jamie’s machinations are overly contrived and serve almost as a McGuffin there simply to drive plot points forward. While Seyfried and Watts are incredibly engaging presences, their characters seem almost like afterthoughts or mere appendages to the two central male characters.

While We’re Young seems to want its comedic cake while having it dramatically speaking, too. Baumbach is a very sharp writer and there are a number of wonderful little throwaway lines that will delight many viewers. A structure which tends to emphasize vignettes rather than a more organically unfolding plot perhaps indicates that Baumbach currently excels more at microcosmic detail than in crafting a cohesive whole. The film is perfectly enjoyable and adroitly performed, but the overall arc of this piece never quite scales the comedic heights or the dramatic depths it seems to have been aiming for.

While We're Young Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

While We're Young is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.85:1. Shot digitally with the Arri Alexa Plus, While We're Young is perfectly presentable if just a bit underwhelming in high definition. The palette is bathed in shades of beiges and yellows, with a distinct lack of really bright hues ever popping with much immediacy. Adding to a generally buttery look is color grading in some scenes which favors saffron hues. While detail is consistently excellent, the overall look of this feature is slightly softer than similarly shot material. Some of this may be due to somewhat anemic contrast, a tendency which tends to add a kind of hazy overlay to some scenes.

While We're Young Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

While We're Young features a lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track, one which offers good immersion courtesy of some of the urban settings, and which also supports dialogue effortlessly. The film has quite a few source cues, including several culled from the works of Vivaldi, and those reside quite comfortably in the surrounds. Prioritization is first rate, and fidelity maintains an accurate rendering of all elements.

While We're Young Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Featurettes (1080p; 7:30) include:

  The Cast

  Director Noah Baumbach

  Charles Grodin

  Generation Tech

• Behind the Scenes (1080p; 2:27) includes:

  Ayahuasca Ceremony

  Hip Hop Class

While We're Young Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Baumbach begins While We're Young with a text excerpt from Henrik Ibsen's The Master Builder, wherein an aging man discusses his fear of those meddling kids (so to speak). Ibsen is hardly known for his comedic finesse, but somehow even this excerpt is given a slightly wry feel despite a complete lack of context. That feeling comes and goes as the actual film proceeds, with Baumbach's comedic chops offering solid one liners, but his dramatic impulses sometimes leading to less felicitous results. Stiller and Watts are low key and completely accessible here, offering a realistic portrayal of two characters stumbling into middle age, and the supporting cast is equally adept. The "journey" here is sometimes fraught with a stumble or two itself, but fans of the stars and/or Baumbach will almost certainly enjoy parts of this film if not the whole. Technical merits are generally first rate, and While We're Young comes Recommended.