The Intern (2015)

On one of Marc Maron's podcasts, he mentioned that this is a movie he likes to rewatch and Jack and I understand why--it's comforting and sweet, about a bored 70-year old retired widower who gets an intern job at a New York fashion house. Robert De Niro is great in the title role, as are the rest of the cast: Anne Hathaway as his tightly wound boss, Rene Russo the on-call massage therapist, and Andrew Rannells, Anders Holm, and Zack Pearlman as other employees, among many in the cast. You will also see Linda Lavin (in one of her final roles) and Celia Weston and hear the voice of Mary Kay Place.

Director/writer Nancy Meyers is known for this kind of soothing picture, aided by the nice soundtrack by Theodore Shapiro, which Jack has compared to Beeman’s gum, a flavor from our childhood. I'm streaming the soundtrack on Apple Music right now.

The movie won the AARP Best Comedy Movie for Grownups award and earned a handful of nominations

De Niro was last blogged for Ezra, Hathaway for Eileen, Russo for Fly Me to the Moon, Rannells for The Prom, Meyers for Father of the Bride 3, and Shapiro for Jackpot! Lavin was most recently in these pages for Wanderlust and had plenty of work in the years following, including 32 episodes of B Positive and nine of Mid Century Modern, and Place for providing a voice in Downsizing.

Holm and Pearlman were familiar faces, due to nine episodes of Inventing Anna for the former and eleven of Shameless for the latter. Some of my favorites of Weston's work are Unstrung Heroes (1995), Flirting with Disaster (1996), Igby Goes Down (1998), five episodes of Modern Family from 2010-2016, and eleven, so far, of Leanne this year.

Rotten Tomatoes' critics are ready to quit with their 59% average but its audiences, at 73, are enjoying the gig a little more. We streamed it on Peacock with our subscription on November 6, but it can also be rented for less than $4.