WHILE WE'RE YOUNG' IS AN ODE TO MARRIED COUPLE MALAIS

In his 2010 novel, Freedom, Jonathan Franzen comments thatOakley Sunglasses Oakley Sunglasses "there are few things harder to imagine than other people's conversations about yourself." Ben Stiller has perfected the portrayal of a character type for whom this thought experiment is likely to be especially fraught:Oakley Sunglasses Oakley Sunglasses a sensitive, ruminative person who, for reasons that are elusive and mysterious (and to no one more so than himself),Ray Ban Sunglasses Outlets Oakley Sunglasses has failed to assume control of his destiny and realize his potential—has, in short, failed to thrive. In the Night at the Museum movies, that guy is Larry Daley; in director Noah Baumbach's Greenberg (2010), he's the titular fellow, first name Roger. When Roger asks his solicitous friend and former bandmate, Ivan (Rhys Ifans), what people say about him, Ivan obligingly lets him in on a whole series of verbal unkindnesses. Roger concludes that, on the subject of himself, the world is wrong, and he is right (which is problematic, to say the least). Stiller is again that guy as Josh in While We're Young, the smartly funny and sharply observed new film by Baumbach, who has become the cinematic bard of bohemian Brooklyn (The Squid and the Whale,Ralph Lauren Outlet Online Ralph Lauren Outlet Frances Ha), much as Woody Allen was the auteur of late-twentieth- century Manhattan. Josh and his wife, Cornelia (Naomi Watts), have settled into a married middle age warmed by a deep companionate glow—but they've also bogged down a bit. Disappointed in their efforts to have a child,Ralph Lauren Outlet Online Polo Ralph Lauren Outlet they feel increasingly oppressed by their friends'Louis Vuitton Outlet Online Louis Vuitton Outlet Online smug preoccupation with parenthood. Cornelia busies herself helping to produce documentaries made by her distinguished and Louis Vuitton Outlet Online Oakley Sunglasses Outlet Louis Vuitton Outletnet">Louis Vuitton Outletsrevered father (an imperious, imperturbable Charles Grodin). Josh, having himself made an admired and promising documentary debut a decade ago, has since been unable to complete an ambitiously philosophical sophomore effort on the deep roots of America'sRay Ban Sunglasses Oakley Sunglasses Outlet propensity to rush into foreign military quagmires—stymied by a lack of funds (and, perhaps, vision) and the consequent need to teach documentary filmmaking.Michael Kors Outlet Ray Ban Sunglasses Outlet It's after one of Josh's lectures that an eager young hipster named Jamie (Adam Driver) approaches him to ask for guidance on how to produce his own project. In a matter of days,Oakley Sunglasses Online Michael Kors Outlet Josh and Cornelia find themselves smitten by the emotional openness and freethinking unconventionality of Jamie and his wife, Darby (Amanda Seyfried, Oakley Sunglasses Oakley Sunglasses Onlinedeftly playing the maybe-not-so-unknowing ingenue), whose primary vocation is manufacturing artisanal ice cream, and the doors open wide to boon companionship and impromptu adventures,Ray Ban Sunglasses Ray Ban Outlet Store from hip-hop dance classes to communal drug trips.Michael Kors Outlet Online Ray Ban Sunglasses The older couple concludes that the mundane routines and distracting techno-clutter of their lives have been salubriously shaken up by their new pals' low-tech, Michael Kors Outlet Online Michael Kors Outlet Onlinelow- overhead approach to life. But then Jamie's project takes off: In contrast to Josh's, it's a rivetingly intense human-interest story. Rather abruptly, some decidedly mixed emotions well up in mellow old Josh, and Baumbach's comedy of Gen-X and Millennial manners veers into more dramatic, plot-driven territory. Driver in particular delivers a knife-edge, flawlessly understated performance as events conspire to turn Josh's reality into a fever dream of frustration. Watts, who's adding While We're Young to an inspired recent run (Birdman, St. Vincent), shines—with a few soft shadows of midlife regret—as the bemused but loyal spouse who sticks with Josh as they feel their way through an especially bewildering patch of life. And Baumbach succeeds in vividly depicting how the people who occasionally serve as catalysts in our lives inevitably do so with results we cannot imagine beforehand—but, if we're lucky, leave us with a little more self-knowledge than we started with.