Movie review by Greg Carlson

A luminous Blythe Danner portrays one of the warmest and most inviting characters of her long career in “I’ll See You in My Dreams,” a quiet and seductive movie about the contours of friendship and the parameters of solitude. Danner’s Carol Petersen resists the entreaties of her trio of pals (Rhea Perlman, Mary Kay Place and June Squibb) to sell her house and join them at the snazzy retirement community/country club where they socialize over cards and the occasional medical marijuana indulgence. Carol, whose husband has been dead for more than two decades, prefers her own kind of carefully ordered independence.

Director Brett Haley, who co-wrote the movie with Marc Basch, doesn’t let his tender age interfere with his interest in treating with respect a demographic virtually invisible in popular movies. Some of the filmmaker’s choices, like the large black rat that appears just the right number of times to establish its symbolic and narrative credentials, or Carol’s altered-states interaction with a police officer, read more broadly than the movie’s most consistent asset: the delicate reminders that we are all subject to the march of time and its accompanying losses.

Following the devastating death of her beloved dog Hazel – a tough scene positioned early and rendered with unflinching detail – Carol makes an unlikely friend in pool cleaner Lloyd (Martin Starr), a bright but rudderless semi-slacker whose introversion and circumspection click with Carol’s sensibilities. Lloyd and Carol bond over a shared interest in music-making, and a scene in which Danner slays a karaoke performance of Arthur Hamilton’s torch classic “Cry Me a River” is worth the price of admission. The age difference between Carol and Lloyd yields several opportunities for the wiser partner to hold forth with some astringent truths, but Danner’s delivery bypasses any potentially preachy overtones.

Gears shift considerably with the arrival of Sam Elliott’s Bill, a courtly smoothie whose charming smile and Zen-like patience lay waste to the battery of pathetic losers encountered by Carol at an uncomfortable speed dating event. Bill’s entrance offers an age-appropriate romance challenged a bit by Carol’s platonic bond with Lloyd, but Haley wrings a great deal of subtlety from the quirky triangle, even pulling off one of those classic movie tropes in which an unexpected visit reveals that “company” has spent the night. Several commentators have remarked on the whisperingly discomfiting manner in which Haley circles around and flirts with a possible sexual spark between Carol and Lloyd, and the film handles it as confidently as the similar tension between Mark Ruffalo’s Dan Mulligan and Keira Knightley’s Gretta James in “Begin Again.”

Some viewers might yearn for additional layers of conflict, but others will admire and appreciate Haley’s resistance to manufacture disagreement for its own sake. For example, when Carol’s adult daughter Katherine (Malin Akerman) comes for a visit, one expects some kind of generational or familial strain. Instead, the conversations between the two women, and for that matter, the majority of the one-on-one interactions throughout the film, invite the viewer to listen in on thoughts — to paraphrase Bill — right just the way they are.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

“Girlhood,” Celine Sciamma’s third feature and the conclusion of what the filmmaker considers a coming-of-age trilogy, continues her engagement with the bildungsroman. Not as contained as debut “Water Lilies” or as directly preoccupied with gender as “Tomboy,” “Girlhood” follows the trajectory of teenager Marieme (Karidja Toure), a bright young woman whose grades are nevertheless inadequate to secure her a continuing spot in school. The alternative, placement in a vocational program, is such a disappointing prospect that Marieme joins a group of fellow dropouts, trading her quieter and more conservative identity for a scrappy tough girl ready to menace suspicious shopgirls and bully the meek out of their pocket money.

Sciamma has a treasure in screen newcomer Toure, whose observant Marieme invites the viewer to share her experiences. Marieme’s companions Adiatou (Lindsay Karamoh) and Fily (Marietou Toure) are led by Lady (Assa Sylla), whose fistfight with a bitter rival simultaneously humiliates and inspires Marieme to assert more power within the quartet. As the reborn Vic (short for Victory), Marieme bonds in several ways with her adopted sisters. Sciamma observes changes big and small as Marieme begins to tentatively step away from her role as caregiver to a pair of younger siblings in favor of the validation and camaraderie she enjoys with her peers.

Much has been made of a standout scene in which the girls put on dresses and dance to Rihanna’s “Diamonds” during a hotel room idyll. The song, charged with the aspirational intertextuality of the singer’s biography, works as both a reminder of the long odds faced by Marieme and the warmth of her sisterhood with Lady, Adiatou, and Fily. Kate Stables draws a general comparison between “Girlhood” and Andrea Arnold’s “Fish Tank,” via “these oppressed tower-block teens, juggling big desires and limited options,” and the parallel can be extended to the music, as the hopeful presence of “Diamonds” functions similarly to Arnold’s use of Nas’ “Life’s a Bitch.”

Just as Marieme begins to discover her place within the core group and the larger community to which the smaller factions belong and/or interact, her blossoming relationship with Ismael (Idrissa Diabate), a close companion of her abusive older brother, threatens the precarious equilibrium. Chastised for imagined promiscuity, Marieme bristles at the patriarchal hypocrisy, and Sciamma firmly filters the sexual exploration through Marieme’s point of view, capturing her resentment and frustration.

The final movement sees Marieme graduate to a less savory means of survival than either the safe(r) but static nuclear unit in the projects or the delinquency that comes with membership in Lady’s clique. While the narrative anticipates some kind of third act Hogarthian rake’s/harlot’s progress, Marieme’s yearning intelligence commands ongoing audience sympathy, even when she makes questionable choices. Additionally, Sciamma subverts any expectation that the indoctrination of Marieme into the “gang” is representative of corruption or moral deficiency.

Marieme’s employment by a manipulative and significantly more dangerous drug dealer alludes to darker thresholds, and Sciamma hints at some challenging gender issues when Marieme morphs between a masculinized persona dependent on breast binding under a baggy sweatshirt and a high-heeled, platinum-wigged courier with uncomfortable hints of being groomed for sexual exploitation. She is caught between two unsustainable options, but is there another? In arguably the film’s finest exchange, Marieme rejects Ismael’s marriage proposal, wisely reasoning that even if the solution would remove the double-standard stigma and make her a “decent girl,” the inevitable future pregnancy would force her into a life she doesn’t want.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

When Microsoft’s subsidiary Xbox Entertainment Studios ceased operations, only one episode of the planned series “Signal to Noise” had been produced. The first cycle of the show was originally slated to include six documentaries on various aspects of videogame culture and the videogame industry. Screenwriter and director Zak Penn, known equally for his work on the stories and scripts of popular Marvel comic book adaptations and his 2004 Werner Herzog team-up “Incident at Loch Ness,” helmed the one-off “Atari: Game Over,” which centers on the quest to dig up a purported trove of Atari merchandise interred, as hardcore fans would have it, when the company went bust back in the 80s. The movie is now available on Netflix – the platform upon which the Xbox Entertainment Studios brand was partially modeled for direct competition.

“Atari: Game Over” includes a flashy and fleet overview of the rise and fall of the titular tech company, the innovative coin-op kingpins and providers of the massively successful Atari 2600 home gaming console. The main course, however, is a drawn-out, contemporary update on the fate of the company’s maligned overstock of “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” cartridges, famously buried in a public landfill in Alamogordo, New Mexico on September 26, 1983. For years, the narrative of the Atari garbage dump has been told and retold as a cautionary tale about the catastrophic failure of the “E.T.” game itself and not in the context of bigger picture market saturation and financial mismanagement that more accurately account for the end of Atari.

At the very heart of the tempest in a teapot is “E.T.” game designer Howard Scott Warshaw, the crazy smart computer engineer who understood the limitations of Atari’s home platform so perfectly that his million-seller blockbuster “Yar’s Revenge” is considered by many to be among the most elegant, immersive, and entertaining games built for the 2600. Gamers will know more details than Penn has time to cover in the short timeframe, but the impossibly brief design window for “E.T.” was a mere five weeks when a typical schedule would allow for several months. “Atari: Game Over” indulges in a bit of revisionist defense on Warshaw’s behalf, arguing that “E.T.” is not all that bad, but one of the funniest scenes in the film shows frustrated players griping about the monotony of the E.T. avatar constantly, maddeningly falling down the playfield’s ubiquitous holes.

While Penn finds an affable and enthusiastic excavator in Joe Lewandowski, whose longtime experience with the landfill leads to a humorous bit comparing Lewandowski’s triangulation techniques to Indiana Jones and the Staff of Ra, the movie leaves out several of the historical anecdotes that gave rise to the “E.T.” legend in the first place, including reports that local kids raided the site to recover copies of not only “E.T.,” which ultimately represented only a fraction of the discarded Atari inventory, but also many other titles.

In addition to Warshaw and Lewandowski, Penn talks to key people like Atari co-founder Nolan Bushnell and the knowledgeable Manny Gerard, an executive with much to say about the inner workings of the videogame company’s relationship with Hollywood. No new interviews with Steven Spielberg were granted, but the “E.T.” auteur shows up in archival footage, at one point enthusing about the upcoming release of the doomed game adaptation. Additional color commentary and nerd cred is provided by “Ready Player One” author Ernest Cline, seen driving a replica E.T. to the dig in his DeLorean DMC-12 (bonus geek points that we get to see Cline pick up the vehicle from George R. R. Martin), and videogame historian and designer Mike Mika, whose personal archive bursts with more than enough content for several more documentaries.

Miniseries review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals key plot information. Read only if you have seen “The Jinx.”

The bombshell revelation that concludes Andrew Jarecki’s HBO series “The Jinx: The Life and Deaths of Robert Durst” occurs when the title subject uses the bathroom while wearing a hot mic. Hilariously, weirdly, but somehow not surprisingly, the incident mirrors the gag in “The Naked Gun” when Leslie Nielsen’s Frank Drebin noisily relieves himself during a press conference. During Durst’s own caught-on-tape moment, the millionaire real estate heir and alleged multiple murderer, long suspected in the disappearance of his wife and the slaying of his close friend, says, “There it is. You’re caught. You’re right, of course. But, you can’t imagine. Arrest him. I don’t know what’s in the house. Oh, I want this. What a disaster. He was right. I was wrong. And the burping. I’m having difficulty with the question. What the hell did I do? Killed them all, of course.”

Whew. What to make of it? Is the recording admissible evidence? Was that the last thing he said when the mic was on or is there an edit for the sake of drama? How long did the filmmakers hold on to that content, and the misspelled “Beverley” envelopes to which Durst was heard reacting, before sharing it with authorities? Was Durst confessing or just imagining a hypothetical conversation with Jarecki? Clearly, Jarecki hit the jackpot by finding, as Sean T. Collins so perfectly put it, “a documentarian’s unicorn.”

The creepy, entitled Durst is remote and aloof, but he also appears to crave attention – chattering and spouting against the advice of his legal team. Jarecki might work a little too hard at the outset to build sympathy for the belching elitist with the “lifeless eyes, black eyes, like a doll’s eyes” of a great white shark. And yet for every stranger-than-fiction inclusion, from cross-dressing and sandwich shoplifting to getting away with shooting, dismembering, and disposing of Morris Black, Jarecki leaves out stuff like Durst urinating on a CVS cash register and “drenching a candy display” in what the latter hysterically described as a “medical mishap.” Indeed.

In her “New Yorker” essay on the end of “The Jinx,” Rebecca Mead takes the position that the audiences of “quasi-journalistic entertainments” engage in an ethically suspect symbiosis. Mead takes aim at the filmmakers as well as HBO subscribers, writing, “…every viewer who is not too stupid or too full of himself to know what was going on knows that what we did was morally indefensible.”

Similar outrage is often leveled at “The Act of Killing,” dividing opinion within the documentary filmmaking community, especially when it comes to the manner or extent to which cinema can/cannot and should/should not be used to reach for or uncover the “truth.” Underneath a great deal of the ire is questionable outrage at the “manipulations” of the moviemaker, as if the construction of any document is not already fraught with the subjectivity of “this-and-not-that.” Are there strict boundaries when it comes to infotainment?

Throughout the course of the public’s fascination with “The Jinx,” Jarecki has been accused of any number of perceived violations of the unstated but assumed codes that govern nonfiction storytelling. Critics have pointed out the stylistic similarities between “The Jinx” and the lowbrow, lurid, true crime content that fills out episodes of “Dateline” and comparable network and cable programming.

From the slow-motion repetition of reenactments (the execution of Susan Berman stands out as one particularly glaring example) to the collection of photographs and documents arranged for greatest emotional impact, Jarecki embraces techniques that Mead thinks contribute to an “extralegal spectacle.” One thing is certain: “The Jinx” is far more entertaining than “All Good Things,” Jarecki’s fictionalized version of the story that piqued the interest of Robert Durst enough for him to reach out to the filmmaker and initiate the long, strange trip leading to Durst’s arrest on March 14, 2015.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Alex Gibney’s documentary “Going Clear: Scientology & the Prison of Belief” uses author Lawrence Wright’s similarly titled book as the basis for a feature-length examination of the controversial organization known to many as the secretive, confusing and mysterious spiritual home of celebrities like Tom Cruise and John Travolta. Legally recognized as a religion by the IRS in 1993, the Church of Scientology began when prolific science fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard morphed his pseudoscientific counseling techniques known as Dianetics into a “religious philosophy” of Byzantine complexity that vacuums money from adherents in a Ponzi-like structure of levels based on one’s ability to purge past traumas through confessional “auditing.”

Hubbard’s esoteric narrative unsurprisingly cobbles together all kinds of pulpy hogwash in the astonishing tale of Galactic Confederacy dictator and alien traveler Xenu, who invaded Earth some 75 million years ago in a DC-8-like spaceship during events known in Scientology as “Incident II.” Gibney does spend ample time examining the better-known aspects of Hubbard’s biography, but Philip Seymour Hoffman’s performance as the LRH-esque Lancaster Dodd in Paul Thomas Anderson’s “The Master” better imagines the kind of charisma needed to invent a religion from the ground up and convince people to come along for the ride.

Left somewhat in need of illumination by Gibney is a fuller explanation of Scientology’s appeal to intelligent and rational humans, especially given its tremendous capacity to attract such huge sums of money and a fair number of Hollywood millionaires. Both Cruise and Travolta make appearances in the film by way of archival material, with the “Top Gun” star often raving like a rabid, foaming lunatic in thrall to current Scientology leader David Miscavige. Travolta comes across as humble and earnest by comparison, but beyond the usual speculation that Miscavige possesses massive files of potentially career-ending blackmail on these stars, we continue to wonder why the successful actors remain so loyal.

One of the most distressing things investigated by Gibney is the intense harassment faced by the so-called apostates who leave Scientology. Filmmaker Paul Haggis, whose very public split with the group in 2009 made headlines and led to Wright’s 2011 feature in “The New Yorker,” is better known than Sylvia Yvonne “Spanky” Taylor, Jason Beghe, and Sara Goldberg, but the personal accounts of the latter trio – as well as the participation of high-ranking senior executives Mike Rinder and Marty Rathbun, who alleges that Nicole Kidman had been illegally wiretapped by Scientology bosses while married to Cruise – are chilling testimonials of prison-like conditions and mental and physical abuse for anyone out of favor with Miscavige.

The vast number of possible storylines contained within and without Wright’s research precludes comprehensive coverage in Gibney’s film. Perhaps the most discussed omission is any mention of Miscavige’s wife Michele, who has not been seen publicly since 2007. Longtime Scientology critics, including Wright, have previously alluded to the absence of Mrs. Miscavige as yet another example of the terrifying manner in which those who run afoul of high leadership are treated. Undoubtedly, Gibney had enough content to create a series of films on Scientology, but what emerges in this single-serving introduction should inspire the curious to learn more about one of the strangest religious movements of the 20^th century.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

WARNING: The following review reveals key plot information. Read only if you have seen “The D Train.”

In their feature directing debut, “Yes Man” screenwriters Jarrad Paul and Andrew Mogel take a stab at blending sitcom-like laughs with social introspection, and the results are as confused as the emotional state of main character Dan Landsman (Jack Black). Landsman, the self-appointed chairperson of his Pittsburgh high school reunion committee, spots old classmate Oliver Lawless (James Marsden) in a national Banana Boat sunscreen commercial, and convinces himself that his upcoming event will be a smash if he can deliver Lawless to the party. Cooking up a phony business trip to Los Angeles to hide his intentions from his supportive wife Stacey (Kathryn Hahn) and his old-fashioned boss Bill (Jeffrey Tambor), Dan’s plan to connect with Oliver goes so well that the men have a one-night stand in the City of Angels.

The sexual encounter comes as a huge surprise to both Dan and the viewer, and the filmmakers – who also co-wrote the script – stage the scene, and especially its final shot, as a comic bombshell dependent on shock value. While the directors make several gestures in the wake of the tryst to alleviate perceptions of outright homophobia, the repercussions of the incident demand more detail than the movie ultimately offers. Oliver, marginally predatory and self-loathing, defines himself as a kind of omnivorous sexual opportunist, neither entirely straight nor gay. He claims that his seduction of Dan meant nothing, and the viewer must take him at his word.

Oliver’s indifference opens several potential readings of the character, and few of them are positive, even as the script provides Marsden with a number of terrific scenes to demonstrate Oliver’s libertinism (threesome advice given to Dan’s 14-year-old son, for example, is the topic of one hilarious if farfetched exchange playing out an equally farfetched subplot). The real disappointment is that Dan’s hurt feelings – acutely communicated by Black – are shrouded in too much ambiguity. Dan might be simultaneously ashamed, traumatized, and exhilarated by what happened in L.A., but “The D Train” only hints about the condition of Dan’s heart when it comes to his relationships with Oliver and Stacey.

The filmmakers are more successful in the handling of another of the movie’s chief thematic concerns: the desperation to affiliate with the perceived “big deal.” Even in Hollywood, the cracks in Oliver’s reputation reveal a dreamer no better or more successful than boring family man Dan. A pitiful exchange between Oliver and Dermot Mulroney, playing a humorously unflattering version of himself in a club, is one in a series of divulgences to the audience that despite Dan’s impressions, Oliver is pretty far away from living the dream.

Paul and Mogel are less confident once the action shifts back to Pennsylvania (New Orleans stood in for the Keystone State) and Dan is left to deal with the potential fallout from the lies he told in the first place. As Dan’s insecurities boil over, the directors miss a genuine opportunity to fully process the experience. Dan’s likeliest confidant is Stacey, and Hahn is fantastic as usual, but for whatever reason, the screenplay fails to see Dan’s spouse as an equal partner in their relationship. In one especially frustrating scene near the end of the movie, Stacey is shut out from a conversation screaming for her participation.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Veteran documentary filmmaker Brett Morgen’s years of hard work pay off in “Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck,” a stunning biographical portrait of the artist and musician. Morgen’s film, made with the full cooperation of Cobain’s survivors, includes Frances Bean Cobain as an executive producer. The director’s “all access pass” to the comprehensive Cobain archive brands his movie as the closest thing to a definitive treatment, and the arresting animation that illustrates a huge amount of the film’s content both visualizes audio-only elements and brings Cobain’s artwork to vivid life.

For devoted Nirvana fanatics, “Montage of Heck” covers some familiar territory, including the grim “be careful what you wish for” narrative that sees the band catapult to stratospheric success seemingly overnight. Fortunately, however, Morgen shrewdly, carefully, and emphatically applies an ever-present sense of clear-eyed skepticism that challenges many of the most durable and dogged myths surrounding Cobain. Additionally, the moviemaker deliberately lets the music speak for itself, skipping analysis and discussion of practically the entirety of Nirvana’s aural/recording history.

Instead, those songs – scorching, ragged, acidic, narcotic, haunting, and haunted – provide a full soundtrack to an intimate exploration of Cobain without tripping over or succumbing to the undesirable “voice of a generation” mantle. For the most part, Morgen trades the icon for the human being, limiting the number of talking heads to only seven new on-camera interviewees, including mother Wendy, whose narration fills out the riveting opening chapters of the film. Krist Novoselic is one of the seven, but Dave Grohl is not (according to Morgen, Grohl’s interviews were collected too late to make the cut).

Cobain’s own voice is thoroughly present, taken from both public and private recordings. The marked separation between the disdainful, unconcealed contempt for MTV – or “empty TV” as Cobain tags it – and the naked, personal cassette confessions coil like snakes on the caduceus. In one of the movie’s most affecting sequences, Cobain shares the traumatic tale of an attempt to lose his virginity. The sad story is animated by Hisko Hulsing (whose “Junkyard,” among its many accolades, received the top prize in animation at the 2013 Fargo Film Festival). Hulsing’s painterly style contrasts with the equally valuable contributions of Stefan Nadelman, who animated the textual and graphic content from Cobain’s notebooks.

AJ Schnack’s beautiful, impressionistic “Kurt Cobain: About a Son,” serene in comparison to the rapid-fire collage of “Montage of Heck,” relied on audio interviews between Cobain and Michael Azerrad, and Morgen makes use of the similarly insightful responses given by Cobain to David Fricke, probably the finest journalist to write about Nirvana. Cobain’s self-reflection and introspection on Fricke’s tapes stretch toward a kind of peace that looks a million miles away in the movie’s toughest, most distressing scene: a ghostly, ravaged Cobain nodding out while he holds Frances during her first haircut.

Cobain’s legendary sensitivity emerges as one of the film’s principal themes, particularly in the way that the singer’s fear of humiliation informed everything from how the band was presented to Kurt’s desperate desire to build the loving and nurturing families denied to him by the divorce of his parents and the painful rejection that devastated him throughout his teens. Without question, Kurt Cobain would not have wanted any of these personal moments served up for public consumption, but in his absence, Morgen makes a strong case for sharing this particular story of an unforgettable subject.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Self-conscious, geeky coder Caleb Smith (Domhnall Gleeson) wins a contest to visit the sprawling private compound of his boss Nathan Bateman (Oscar Isaac), a computer genius using his billions to pursue artificial intelligence in the form of an erotically charged machine named Ava (Alicia Vikander). Screenwriter/novelist Alex Garland makes his directorial debut with “Ex Machina,” the alternately intriguing and infuriating result of Nathan’s scheme to use Caleb as human bait in a twisted version of the Turing Test. “Ex Machina” is pretty shaky as far as anything resembling an earnest exploration of the philosophy of AI goes, but as heterosexual male fantasy, it’s what Bryant in “Blade Runner” would call a “basic pleasure model.”

It doesn’t take more than a minute to figure out that Nathan is not to be trusted, and despite the ostentatiousness of his modernist keep, complete with elaborate key card security system and an original Jackson Pollock painting, the bachelor pad/research facility is strangely susceptible to power outages that shut down the audio and video surveillance that Nathan uses to monitor the meetings between Caleb and Ava. While theoretically, Nathan’s invention could have taken any form, its manifestation as a kind of motorized Aphrodite requires Garland to confront the competing impulses of lust and intellect. Like Jason Lee’s lonely tech mogul discovers in the largely forgotten “Mumford,” money can’t but love, but it can pay for, as Stephen Holden noted, “a line of robotic sex surrogates that are virtually indistinguishable from flesh-and-blood humans.”

In one sequence, previous iterations of Nathan’s full body experiments are revealed like a perverse, Frankenstein-ian cross between Bluebeard’s wives and next gen RealDolls. David Edelstein identifies the plot’s indebtedness to classic crime ménage a trois, writing that the movie has “everything to do with James M. Cain and the noir-ish world of abusive husband-masters, wily female slaves, and poor-sap male ingénues.” An emergent femme fatale, Ava perfectly exudes a Marilyn Monroe-like combination of childlike vulnerability and potential sexual availability certain to cause trouble for anyone foolish enough to offer protection or rescue.

After Vikander, the most entertaining thing about “Ex Machina” is the bugged-out comic presence of Oscar Isaac, who more often than not gives the distinct impression that he recognizes the ridiculousness of the movie’s “deep” thoughts and is just having a blast winking at the audience. His Nathan is bright, petulant, aggressive, grating, and confident to the extent you can see him compensating for a fragile insecurity with every backslap and faux sincere use of “bro.” The fantastic, synchronized disco routine by Isaac and Sonoya Mizuno set to Oliver Cheatham’s “Get Down Saturday Night” is solid gold.

Tasha Robinson identifies the “unmistakable masculine collusion between [Caleb] and Nathan over [Ava], as if Nathan were pimping her out,” and Garland stays firmly and purposefully in the orbit of the boys. Garland’s move might deliberately occlude Ava’s intentions until late in the game, but it also keeps her at a distance that puts a huge strain on the film, since she is by far the most interesting character and her absences are always keenly felt. In this sense, “Ex Machina” is a far cry from Spike Jonze’s “Her” and Jonathan Glazer’s “Under the Skin,” two superior examples of science fiction that better understand – and are unafraid to engage with – nuances within the politics of gender.

Movie review by Greg Carlson

Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts are New Yorkers Josh and Cornelia, married and rocketing through their forties. Childless and conflicted about it, the pressure from old friends/new parents Marina (Maria Dizzia) and Fletcher (Adam Horovitz) doesn’t exactly help. Josh is a documentary filmmaker whose current project has consumed nearly a decade of his life. And he’s still shooting footage while his editor Tim (Matthew Maher) toils away without a paycheck. Cornelia’s father Leslie (Charles Grodin), also a documentarian, is about to receive a career retrospective at Lincoln Center, but Josh is too proud to accept Leslie’s help.

Writer-director Noah Baumbach, as sharp and funny as ever, continues to get better with age – especially when aging is his subject. “While We’re Young,” like the more ebullient “Mistress America,” is acutely aware of the impossible gulf between the unseasoned but effortlessly cool twentysomething and the experienced but fast-fading “grown-up” desperate to hang on to youth and all its real and imagined benefits. Josh and Cornelia are dazzled by Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), mere babies who use manual typewriters and watch movies on VHS. At first, the blossoming friendship holds the promise of restoring Josh and Cornelia to a more optimistic and creatively charged attitude, but Jamie and Darby might not be as wonderful as they initially appear.

As Josh and Cornelia sweat to keep up with their new pals, Baumbach delights in cooking up the film’s funniest stretch: a series of social comparisons highlighting the generational differences between the Generation Xers on the brink of arthritis (the disorder named in one of the movie’s most hilarious lines) and the hipster Millennials too young to identify with any of the original associations that accompany Lionel Richie’s “All Night Long (All Night)” or Survivor’s “Eye of the Tiger.” From Vivaldi to A Tribe Called Quest, Baumbach makes excellent music selections as usual, and James Murphy returns with a solid score (and an instrumental, lullaby version of Bowie’s “Golden Years”).

“While We’re Young” spends more time unpacking Josh’s mental baggage than it does addressing any similar insecurities that might be felt by Cornelia. Additionally, Darby fades away as Jamie’s manipulations come to dominate a plot revolving around truth and ethics in nonfiction cinema. Regarding the gender imbalance, some reviewers have been harsh. A. O. Scott writes of “While We’re Young,” “Men make movies. Women make ice cream or babies, or help the men make their movies.” The diminished status of the female characters does not doom the film, but it might make some of Baumbach’s admirers long for more collaboration between the director and partner Greta Gerwig, whose importance to “Frances Ha” and “Mistress America” lends those movies a deeply rewarding feminine perspective.

Instead, we grovel along with Josh, whose self-doubt resides well within Stiller’s wheelhouse. Stiller’s Roger Greenberg is a richer and more interesting character, in part because Baumbach explored the man’s capacity for cruelty in addition to glimmers of redemption. “While We’re Young” is lighter and broader than “Greenberg,” and the latter’s gradations give way to the former’s more black and white renderings. As the end game of the newer movie makes perfectly clear, it is Jamie, and not Josh, who is the callous, scheming asshole.