Timely and Observant, But Not Enough Grodin

Noah Baumbach’s witty and sly new film, “While We’re Young,” begins with quotations from 

Ibsen’s “The Master Builder” about the perils of opening the door to the next generation. The movie ends with observing that the what’s on the door’s other side may be “not evil, just young.” In between, we see the effects of new technology and intergenerational envy and of different views of honesty and ethics in Baumbach’s funniest and best movie in a decade. 

Baumbach is the current doyen of self-referential New York City filmmaking. A next-generation Woody Allen — “Young” may remind you of Allen’s “Crimes and Misdemeanors” — Baumbach’s films are always autobiographical in some way. The new film was inspired by “spending a lot of time with young people,” perhaps through his 31-year-old partner, Greta Gerwig (Baumbach is 45), the star of his wistful “Frances Ha.”

Josh (Ben Stiller, in a fine performance) and Cornelia (Naomi Watts) are a childless couple on hold in their mid-40s. Josh, who years before won acclaim for a documentary film, has been working on a new documentary about political, historical and military connections that centers on a Turkish uprising. 

 “It’s really about America” he tells resistant financial backers.

His father-in-law (a wonderful Charles Grodin, who is the moral center of the film), an esteemed documentarian, says Josh’s project is “a six-and-a-half hour film that’s seven hours too long.” (Josh hates his father-in-law.)

Josh and Cornelia meet Jamie (a terrific Adam Driver) and Darby (Amanda Seyfried, kooky and endearing). Jamie is an aspiring documentarian; Amanda makes artisinal ice cream in “challenging” flavors. They live in an unused water tower in Harlem, a loft filled with objects from before high tech: old typewriters, an enormous collection of music on vinyl, even a hen in a cage. He wears clashing plaids and a hat; she very little, very hippie.

Josh and Cornelia are at first charmed by the younger couple, if surprised by their neo-luddite lifestyle. Josh is flattered by Jamie’s seeking his advice for Jamie’s own project about the fallacy of Facebook. Baumbach mines the couples’ differences for all they’re worth: the younger couple hunkers down in the water tower for nights watching VHS tapes and dancing to funky older music; Josh and Cornelia scan iPads and flick through Hulu unable to find anything to watch. Jamie and Darby play board games and explore unused subway tunnels; the older couple has dinner with friends who discuss their children and constantly check their smartphones.

What at first seems fun and energizing to Josh slowly gives way to questions about Jamie’s motives for striking up the friendship, and about the authenticity of Jamie’s project. (Stiller’s usual mask of indifference becomes the face of paranoia.) The charming becomes the cloying (an unfortunate sequence of a night of drugging seems borrowed from Judd Apatow), and friendship slips into something perhaps sinister.

Then this grand, sophisticated farce moves, not comfortably perhaps, into an ending about truth, moral responsibility and the limits of authenticity. The transition is awkward, but again autobiographical. (Baumbach recently tried to break out of his self-created, indie-film box to direct a television adaptation of Jonathan Franzen’s best-selling novel, “The Corrections,” a project he worked on for several years. He had only filmed half a pilot before HBO canceled.)

Despite the forced ending, “Young” is timely, acutely observant and richly funny. The cast is near perfect; only Seyfried seems a little out of place in Darby’s bohemian world. Gerwig would have been a better choice. It’s amusing to see Beastie Boy Adam Horovitz as a stay-at-home father who constantly urges Josh and Cornelia to have children; and Charles Grodin leaves us wanting to see him on screen more often.

“While We’re Young” begins playing in our area soon. It is rated R for language.