The movie is about Ben Whittaker (Robert De Niro) who's a senior citizen that has retired from a phone book company and is a widower. Ever since the lost of his wife he had tried to be a part of society by doing a lot of activities like practicing yoga, taking Mandarin classes and even try to form a habit by having his daily coffee at the local Starbucks at a certain time. But none seems to be working and he felt really disconnected with society (sounds familiar to me). One day he stumbled upon a flyer that was put up indicating of a hip young online shopping company called "About the Fit" and are looking for senior citizen to fill the role of interns. And so, Ben undertook the task of applying for the job because he misses the structure of work and this is the thing that he's looking for to help him keep moving and be a part of something.
The company was founded by Jules Ostin (Anne Hathaway) who built the company on her own and has a very hands on approach to everything about the company from detailing on website design to how to pack the clothing into a parcel at warehouse. She also has her quirks of loving to ride a bicycle to travel in the office from one end to the other (which by the way, never showed this idea anymore after 2 scenes of this) and everyone says that she's hard to work with (although from the portrayal I gather, she seems to be sweet and pleasant who gets along with her employees just fine just that at times she demands work to be done and is fickle but she asks in a reasonable and polite way).
So Ben goes through the motion of the interview and was hired as an intern. He was assign to be under Jules Ostin which in the beginning, she tried to persuade Ben to take a transfer to another department due to Jules feeling that it would not work between her and Ben because she don't know how to handle older people and is a very independent person hence there won't be much work for him to do under her. Ben insisted to remain under her and for a period of time, there was nothing that she had tasked Ben to do, nothing at all. Eventually, Ben nosed around and done a few things out of his own initiative and also got himself to be her driver when he caught her driver taking a swig of alcohol.
From nothing to do to literally being the boss' PA, Ben went from cleaning a stain to taking her kid to a function and being a cheerleader to Jules as well.
During that time, the shareholders pressured Jules to take on a CEO to run the company and so Jules reluctantly agreed to meet with potential CEO candidates. Amidst of her work etiquette being threatened, she also face problems with her marriage having a cheating stay-at-home husband and hope that hiring a CEO would resolve this issue allowing her to spend more time with her family.
I quite like this movie. It's heartfelt, it's moving, it's touching. It has an old-fashion's touch to a modern setting. Robert De Niro played his character well and is always the level headed, composed and organized person who always says the right things at the right time except for the time he accompanied Jules to San Francisco where she poured her personal marriage problems on him in a breakdown and that's the only time he didn't know how to respond to her and his facial expressions betrayed him on what he's thinking and feeling. His character although initially started off as someone I can relate to, feelings of disconnection from the world and society as a whole, then eventually turned into this perfect role model whom you know it's impossible to follow.
Anne Hathaway is almost perfect for the role which I would say is only second to perhaps Reese Witherspoon. I could see Reese Witherspoon being a more perfect fit for this role of a strong independent business woman where in the middle of her rising success the fangs of a crumbling marriage is showing and is only supported over the comfort words and actions of Ben Whittaker.
I also find that the movie strangely revolves around a suburban paradise of white upper class humans. There's literally no black people in the movie. LOL. Not that it matters to me. Anyway, I rate the movie 4 out of 5 stars.
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