The Anxiety Of Aging

Noah Baumbach eases the anxiety of aging by making fun of it in his comedic exploration of the intergenerational gap, While We’re Young. To introduce the themes is a quote from Ibsen’s The Master Builder, raising the question – should a middle-aged person, horrified by the nature of young people, ‘open the door’ and let them in?

Josh (Ben Stiller) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are a 40-something married couple who aren’t having children even though their friends are, and who seem happy enough going to bed early and scrolling through their smart devices. That’s until they meet Jamie (Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried), a married couple they befriend who happen to be half their age. Josh and Cornelia are invigorated by their boundless energy, and a sort of romance with youth ensues. “I think, I found myself living under the false pretence that I was still a younger version of myself,” Baumbach says of what inspired him to write what at first seems like a story about longing to be young, and then becomes more of sigh with relief that you’re not.

The psychologies and lifestyles of two different generations are lined up next to each other, showing where one departs from another through amusingly awkward generational crossovers. But the biggest juxtaposition is between Stiller and Driver, both documentary filmmakers: the younger one makes success look easy, the older one has spent ten years making a documentary that goes everywhere in its content and nowhere in his career. “I wanted to poke fun at Ben’s investment in, and falling hard for this couple, which is obviously funny, but I also didn’t want to sell Ben out,” Baumbach says. “I wanted the audience to understand why he would fall for this guy.”

While We’re Young leaves no generation unscathed, taking hipster culture to the ultimate height with a vomiting ayahuasca ceremony, while former Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz no longer fights for a right to party, because he’s got a baby strapped to his chest. “I’ve known Adam [Horovitz] for a while and I was really glad when he agreed to play the part. Then afterward I became more aware of the poignancy of seeing Ad Rock as a middle-aged dad. I suppose for a generation of people, it’s an acknowledgement that they aren’t the same age anymore. And I’ve been on the Cornelia-Josh side of watching friends have kids and, you know, having trouble getting as invested in their kid. And then I’ve been on the other side, where I’ve been just as guilty of going on about it and telling people it will change their lives.”

In poking fun at everyone, the film explores both sides of every argument, while never offering any answers.  Should the next stage of age be embraced and the previous one let go of? Or should youthful invigoration be a thing that’s embraced and held on to? “I didn’t feel like I had to resolve these issues, because I didn’t have any answers. I think in some ways the Ibsen quote is saying is that you have no choice. They’re going to break the door down one way or another. Maybe let them in and take your chances.”