The film’s timely theme is just sort of abandoned about halfway through.

What a shame. There’s a timely theme to be explored here, about the older generation learning to function within the current technological landscape of the business world, and the possible value their own experience has for the younger generation, that the film just sort of abandons about halfway through.

Nancy Meyers switches focus from the successful-woman-of-a-certain-age protagonists of Something’s Gotta Give (2003) or It’s Complicated (2009) to a retired gentleman mentor (Robert De Niro) / younger female business success (Anne Hathaway) dynamic. The Intern starts off telling its story gently and sweetly enough, before taking strange turns into zany heist shenanigans and infidelity melodrama, with a joke about De Niro… getting a boner?

Rene Russo‘s masseuse skills aside, De Niro’s performance is understated and charming. Anne Hathaway’s character is way more likeable than the startup clichés usually presented in this kind of movie – which makes it all the more disappointing when this movie just becomes about nothing at all for too long and significant a stretch, before barely bringing it back at the end – all of which makes this sweet-intentioned movie overall ‘okay’ instead of ‘good’. The Intern is a movie I could watch it with my mum, but not be be surprised if in the end she found it a bit ‘meh’.