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Reel Critics: ‘Young’ captures the restless

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Director Noah Baumbach (“The Squid and the Whale”) takes us to unexpected places in his new offbeat dramatic comedy. “While We’re Young” provides a revealing and very clever look at the life and times of two couples on the cusp of America’s generational divide.

Ben Stiller and the excellent Naomi Watts play an older couple in their 40s. They are very set in their lackluster ways: “We can’t do two things in one night!” Amanda Seyfried and Adam Driver play a free-spirited young couple in their dynamic 20s: “I don’t think I’m ever gonna die!” They prove this by walking through local train tunnels after dinner for sport.

Once this foursome meets and starts hanging out together, their contrasting lifestyles take center stage. Many amusing and fast-paced encounters follow. They provide lots of laughs and some striking insights about modern life along the way.

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Charles Grodin is outstanding as his character quietly assumes a pivotal role in the lives of all the other players. This unusual film has something to offer both generations, depicted with perceptive wit and humor.

—John Depko

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Pass on a ticket to ‘Ride’

How appropriate, sitting for over two hours watching a movie called “The Longest Ride.” Based on yet another Nicholas Sparks novel, it’s a silly tearjerker about impossibly bland white people.

Wholesome sorority girl Sophia (Britt Robertson) has a chance to intern at a New York art gallery when she meets wholesome, lanky bull rider Luke (Scott Eastwood). Everyone’s so freshly scrubbed, I’m sure even those bulls smell like roses.

Before long we get the standard montage of romance at sunset, in the rain, in the shower and in cowboy hats. Can we go home yet?

But no, “love requires sacrifice.” She wants the big city; he wants to be close to the cattle and help Mama. They separate, but not before Luke saves an old man named Ira and Sophia rescues Ira’s old love letters.

She kindly reads the letters to Ira in the hospital, and the only thing that kept me from narcolepsy was a well-acted second story, told in flashback, of Ira (Jack Huston) and Ruth (Oona Chaplin). Old Ira, played by Alan Alda, imparts worldly wisdom to Sophia when he’s not being lovably cranky.

Luke comes to visit Ira in hospital (he finds parking right in front of the entrance) and the old Sparks magic ignites. Cue the music! Can we get another montage in the rain, please?

Eastwood’s good looks and resemblance to his dad are quite distracting. He doesn’t have to do much but grin and squint like Clint. Robertson is suitably blonde and pretty when she cries.

“The Longest Ride’s” sole purpose seems to be to make even the most jaded moviegoer tear up. But the ending is so preposterous we can’t help but laugh out loud. Perhaps it would be fun if we were in slow-motion, at sunset, in the rain.

—Susanne Perez

JOHN DEPKO is a retired senior investigator for the Orange County public defender’s office. He lives in Costa Mesa and works as a licensed private investigator. SUSANNE PEREZ lives in Costa Mesa and is an executive assistant for a company in Irvine.

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