"The Intern" (2015) — A Gentle Mirror of Modern Roles and Quiet Struggles

* Review by me in collaboration with ChatGPT

Nancy Meyers’ The Intern is, on the surface, a warm, feel-good story about a retired widower who joins a rising tech startup as a senior intern. But beneath its stylish interiors, clever dialogue, and comforting tone lies something more reflective — a subtle meditation on gender roles, modern work-life balance, and the quiet loneliness that can live inside even the most successful people.

A Familiar Setup, with a Twist

Anne Hathaway plays Jules Ostin, the brilliant, driven CEO of an exploding fashion e-commerce startup. She’s sharp, stylish, and committed — a woman who built her company from the ground up. Robert De Niro plays Ben Whittaker, a 70-year-old widower seeking new purpose through a senior intern program.

The premise suggests a role-reversal comedy or a generation-gap culture clash. But surprisingly, it’s neither of those things. Ben doesn’t come to challenge Jules. He doesn’t need to "teach the kids how it's done." Instead, he becomes a quiet, calming presence — a supportive friend and anchor as Jules navigates the overwhelming pressures of her life.

Not Just About Business

At first, the film feels like it might be about leadership — a woman learning to let go, delegate, and grow into the role of a mature executive. But the movie sidesteps that arc. Instead, the pressure to hire a more “experienced” CEO is used less as a turning point and more as a symbol: Jules isn’t struggling because she’s incompetent — she’s struggling because the roles she’s playing are almost impossible to balance.

She’s not just a CEO. She’s a mother. A wife. A founder. A symbol. And everyone wants something from her.

We’re shown that success doesn’t protect you from exhaustion, and that even in a world where gender equality is officially accepted, emotional and societal expectations remain uneven.

A Reversal That Reveals

Jules’ husband, Matt, is a stay-at-home dad — a former successful worker who gave up his career for the family. On the surface, it seems progressive. But as the story unfolds, we see the quiet cost of the role reversal. He feels diminished, forgotten, and — in a critical emotional moment — seeks affirmation outside the marriage.

This gender-flipped setup becomes a mirror. For male viewers, it can provoke an uncomfortable but valuable recognition: “If this makes me uneasy, how must women have felt for generations?” For female viewers, it might evoke a more personal response: “Yes — this is the pressure I feel. This is what I carry.”

And in this way, The Intern becomes more than a charming story. It becomes a mirror, held up gently, inviting the audience to look — not just at Jules and Ben, but at themselves.

Feminism, Softly Spoken

Is this a feminist film? In a quiet way, yes. But it’s not a manifesto. It doesn’t shout or accuse. It doesn’t draw hard lines between right and wrong. Instead, it simply shows a woman trying to do it all — and gently asks the viewer to consider how hard that really is.

Rather than demanding change, it offers a moment of shared reflection. It suggests that expecting anyone — woman or man — to master both career and home without flaw is an unrealistic and unfair burden. And that those burdens, though invisible, weigh heavily.

Friendship Without Romance

One of the most beautiful surprises of the film is that it avoids a romantic subplot between the older man and the younger woman. It would’ve been easy — even expected. But instead, their relationship remains rooted in mutual respect, support, and platonic affection. Ben isn’t her savior, nor is she his second chance at love. They are simply two people — deeply human, navigating change, and better for having met.

A Snapshot, Not a Solution

Ultimately, The Intern doesn’t aim to solve the problems it presents. It doesn’t lecture or offer a clean conclusion. It simply gives us a snapshot of modern life, where roles have changed faster than expectations, and people are still adjusting to the emotional fallout.

It invites empathy, not answers. Understanding, not judgment.

And in that, it succeeds.

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★★★★☆

A quietly thoughtful film wrapped in comfort, style, and warmth. More than it appears — if you’re willing to look.

Interpretation of “Past Lives” by BØRNS

A meditation on love, memory, and the awakening to the Eternal Now

* This article was written by me (sunyata00) in collaboration with ChatGPT.

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🎵 Past lives couldn't ever hold me down

The song opens with a quiet assertion of liberation. Past lives—whether taken literally as reincarnated selves or metaphorically as one’s personal history—often weigh people down. We carry memories, regrets, heartbreaks, patterns. These can become invisible prisons that shape our present, limiting our ability to love or to feel newness again.

But the speaker declares that such burdens have no power here. The past—however long or far it stretches—cannot restrain the present moment. In this line, the speaker steps out of the shadows of memory, choosing instead to stand fully in the now, where nothing from before can dictate what is.

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🎵 Lost love is sweeter when it's finally found

Here, love is rediscovered—or perhaps recognized anew. It may have been lost across time, distance, or even forgotten entirely. But now, in the light of this moment, it is found again, and it is sweeter for having once slipped away.

There’s a tenderness in this line, a quiet awareness of love’s impermanence. It speaks to how longing sharpens appreciation, how absence deepens presence. In remembering that love can vanish, the speaker treasures its return all the more. But the sweetness here isn’t only born of reunion—it also comes from transformation. The love that returns is not the same as before, because the people themselves are not the same.

This can also be read as a reflection of a spiritual journey—akin to the parable of the Prodigal Son, where one wanders, falls, and returns changed. The “lost love” may symbolize more than romantic connection; it could represent a return to one’s truer self, to clarity, or to a deeper understanding of what matters. And in that return, having tasted the futility of temporary pleasures or illusion, the love is now fuller—infused with humility, gratitude, and wisdom. It is not just reunion, but redemption.

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🎵 I've got the strangest feelin' / This isn't our first time around

The feeling of familiarity emerges—not as a rational thought, but as a deep intuition. Perhaps this love has happened before. Perhaps these souls have met in some other form, some other life. But rather than proving or explaining, the speaker simply accepts the mystery of recognition.

It reflects how love, when real, often feels timeless. As though the self isn’t meeting a stranger, but remembering someone it always knew. This “strange feeling” isn’t about facts—it’s about presence. The moment is so vivid, so true, that it overrides all logic. What matters is not whether it happened before, but that it feels eternal right now.

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🎵 Past lives couldn't ever come between us

The past returns again, not as memory now, but as a test. Can the weight of what came before—old heartbreaks, different lives, lost chances—separate two souls? The answer is no.

This line affirms that presence overpowers history. The love that exists now is not bound by narrative. It doesn’t need justification or proof. It simply is. When two people meet in the fullness of the moment, everything else—names, stories, time—fades into the background. All that remains is the connection as it is now, untouchable by what preceded it.

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🎵 Sometimes the dreamers finally wake up

Here, the dream begins to tremble. Love that felt magical, perfect, infinite—can suddenly vanish. Not slowly, but all at once, like mist when the sun rises. And when it does, the dreamers are left wondering: Was it ever real?

This line acknowledges the brutal truth: love can feel like a dream, and like a dream, it can disappear. The emotions, the memories, the sense of fate—all of it can feel as if it never truly existed. This is not just heartbreak—it is disorientation. The surreal contrast between what was felt and what is now gone.

Yet within that sorrow lies something profound. If a love felt real in the moment, even if it ends, doesn’t that make it real while it lasted? Doesn’t the depth of feeling affirm its truth, if only for a time?

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🎵 Don’t wake me, I’m not dreaming

This final line is the key to the entire song. At first glance, it sounds like denial—a plea to remain asleep in the illusion of love. But listen again.

“Don’t wake me, I’m not dreaming.”
Not “I am dreaming, and I want to stay.”
But “I am not dreaming—this is real.”

The speaker is not clinging to fantasy. They are affirming the reality of the present—this moment, this connection, this feeling. The dream is not the love; the dream is thinking it needs to last forever to be real.

This line echoes the wisdom of spiritual teacher Eckhart Tolle, who wrote:

“The present moment is all you ever have. There is never a time when your life is not 'now.'”

When the speaker says, “Don’t wake me,” they are not resisting reality—they are resisting the illusion that the past or future has more reality than this very instant. In a world that teaches us to live in memory or anticipation, the speaker is wide awake in the now.

Even if the love ends later, even if it fades like a dream, it is real now. And now is all there is.

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🌌 Final Reflection

“Past Lives” is a song about the tension between love’s eternity and its fragility. It weaves together memory, longing, recognition, and the haunting sense that even our most profound moments can dissolve without warning.

But within that fragility lies awakening. The speaker comes to see that love’s truth isn’t measured by duration, but by depth of presence. If love is fully felt—if it fills the now—it is as real as anything can ever be.

Even as the dream threatens to slip away, the speaker refuses to let go of its reality. They do not plead for fantasy; they affirm that they are not dreaming. They are awake. They are alive. And for this fleeting, eternal moment—they are in love.

And that is enough.