A Nancy Meyers film. Anne Hathaway and Robert De Niro. A fashion start-up and a phonebook company. A complicated marriage and a budding oldies’ romance. Learning new things and unlearning some. Humor. Chaos. Inspiration. All kinds of love.Â
These are some of the words that come to mind when watching The Intern. It’s one of my comfort movies and a warm fuzzy feeling spreads through me as I watch more and more of it.Â
One of the most amazing parts of the movie is the development of the relationship between Jules and Ben. It is considered that the movie doesn’t have a love angle to it but I believe otherwise. The preciousness lies in the love between them, kindling their professional relationship into a caring and supportive friendship.Â
“I don’t want to be buried alone. Paige will be with her husband, and Matt will be with his new family, and I will be buried with strangers. I’ll be buried in the strangers singles section of the cemetery.” Said a distraught Jules. When Ben responds with “Let’s take that one off your plate right now. You can be buried with me and Molly. I happen to have space, okay?”, it just beautifully sums up their relationship. Ben becomes Jules’ new-found support system. He simultaneously tries finding solace at About the Fit after his monotonous retirement life.
Jules Austen (played by Anne Hathaway) and her driven bad-ass attitude hypes me up while watching this classic (as I consider it to be). Her quirky, slightly (highly) anal-retentive, and strong-minded personality brings a lot to the film. I love her for being herself throughout the movie, even though there are people in her life trying to tell her what to do, which often clashes with her own will. However, Ben is never the one to do so, setting their dynamic apart.
“We were always told we could be anything, do anything. And I think guys got, maybe not left behind, but not quite as nurtured, you know? I mean, like, we were the generation of ‘you go, girl.’ We had Oprah. And I wonder sometimes how guys fit in, you know? They still seem to be trying to figure it out.”Â
Jules’ speech about boys being left behind in our generation is hilarious and ironically true sometimes. It’s the latter because the entire movie has an underlying theme of women empowerment and Jules being the badass she is, talks about men not having enough as she goes through a series of downs in her relationship with Matt.
“I feel like I’m everybody’s uncle,” says Ben quite in line with his character. He is indeed like a fairy godfather (a realistic one – mind you) to almost everyone in the office. He brings his experience and sarcasm along to solve everyone’s problems at About the Fit. From letting Davis stay at his apartment, getting Becky and Jason together to deleting the crazy email from Jules’ mom’s laptop, Ben does it all. In Davis’ words, “You’re one crazy son of a bitch Ben.”
I would like to provide a special mention to the heist scene which ALWAYS cracks me up. Davis under pressure wipes his fingerprints using a tie while Ben uses this terror to rush him out of the house. Jason rap-singing in the car while Davis freaks out and jumps onto the hood of the car to get his attention gets me laughing till I can’t breathe!
Finally, as Jules says to Ben, “Something about you makes me feel calm or more centered or something and I could use that.” That’s exactly how I feel about this masterpiece of media. If I could, I’d say these exact words to the film. It’s my all-time comfort movie!