This is an obvious story. When you are middle aged, i.e. in your 40s, you can get into a routine, a rut of sorts, with almost no excitement in your life. If you don't watch out. And when you do, and realize it, you need to do something.
The script demonstrates this cleverly near the beginning, the couple are settling into bed for the night, she turns on the bedside lamp to read, he squints a bit and muses that the light seems bright. "What is the wattage of that bulb." She looks, squints, "I think it is 75 watts but it is bright and I'm not sure." Only a long-term couple that has settled into a boring routine would have that exchange as if it mattered.
The couple are both 40-something actors Naomi Watts as Cornelia and Ben Stiller as Josh. They live in New York, naturally, have no children, he is a filmmaker working on his second documentary but seems stuck. He has hours of film, some good interviews, but is having trouble pulling it all together.
He is just finishing a lecture and at the end meets a younger couple, Adam Driver as Jamie and Amanda Seyfried as Darby. They are just the opposite, they are spontaneous, they seem to see life and the world around them as one big playground. And he is also working on a documentary.
As it turns out Jamie and Darby didn't meet Josh by accident, he was targeted. It raises some ethical issues, especially when it is discovered that much of Jamie's "documentary" was actually arranged. But through it all Josh and Cornelia learn some things about themselves and some ways to look at their lives in different ways.
A pretty entertaining movie, I always like Watts and I like Stiller when he is NOT playing some slapstick role, he is actually a very effective actor.
As an aside it was nice seeing Peter Yarrow as the oldtimer being interviewed, as Ira Mandelstam. Most are probably too young to remember the singing group "Peter, Paul and Mary", which rose to the top in the 1960s, but he is the "Peter" of the group. I saw them live in Houston in the 1980s, it is nice to see him still finding new things to do.
The script demonstrates this cleverly near the beginning, the couple are settling into bed for the night, she turns on the bedside lamp to read, he squints a bit and muses that the light seems bright. "What is the wattage of that bulb." She looks, squints, "I think it is 75 watts but it is bright and I'm not sure." Only a long-term couple that has settled into a boring routine would have that exchange as if it mattered.
The couple are both 40-something actors Naomi Watts as Cornelia and Ben Stiller as Josh. They live in New York, naturally, have no children, he is a filmmaker working on his second documentary but seems stuck. He has hours of film, some good interviews, but is having trouble pulling it all together.
He is just finishing a lecture and at the end meets a younger couple, Adam Driver as Jamie and Amanda Seyfried as Darby. They are just the opposite, they are spontaneous, they seem to see life and the world around them as one big playground. And he is also working on a documentary.
As it turns out Jamie and Darby didn't meet Josh by accident, he was targeted. It raises some ethical issues, especially when it is discovered that much of Jamie's "documentary" was actually arranged. But through it all Josh and Cornelia learn some things about themselves and some ways to look at their lives in different ways.
A pretty entertaining movie, I always like Watts and I like Stiller when he is NOT playing some slapstick role, he is actually a very effective actor.
As an aside it was nice seeing Peter Yarrow as the oldtimer being interviewed, as Ira Mandelstam. Most are probably too young to remember the singing group "Peter, Paul and Mary", which rose to the top in the 1960s, but he is the "Peter" of the group. I saw them live in Houston in the 1980s, it is nice to see him still finding new things to do.