The Perfect Gentleman Issue 2 - April 2016 | Page 30

Cultural Gentleman

by Zach Falconer-Barfield

What is a retired widower to do? If you are
Robert De Niro’s Ben Whittaker, you take an
Internship at a rapidly growing e-commerce
fashion startup led by Anne Hathaway’s Jules
Ostin. That is the central premise of Nancy
Meyers, light 2015 comedy, which has recently
come out on video.
It is a tale of old vs new, fast vs steady,
experience vs intuition and at it’s core is a tale
of friendship. The plot is very simple this 70
year old Intern though initially is thought of
as somewhat of a joke, slowly wins the not
only staff but the founder, with his charm,
skill, work ethic and knowledge. There is also
a little sub-plot of a nice romance between
Ben and the ‘in-house’ massage therapist
played by the delightful Rene Russo.

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There are many things for me that makes this
a Perfect Gentleman worthy movie, it has
charm & wisdom but most of all it’s the
lessons that Robert De Niro’s character hands
out to the youngsters in the movie that make
it one for us. De Niro’s Ben doles out fashion
advice to a hipster expecting to meet Jay-Z,
romance advice to a tongue-tied romeo;
business advice to stressed out CEO and more.
The relationship between the central
characters develops from standoffish &
prickly to warm & reliant in reasonable pace
but what it does show is that kindness &
perseverance can almost always win the day.
Indeed, the romance between DeNiro & Russo
is handle with class for it’s age but also with
some great humour.