Name : Richard Brody / Alias : New Yorker
This earnest, effusive haut-bourgeois fantasy, by the writer and director Nancy Meyers, runs roughshod over rational skepticism with the force of her life experience.

Name : Stephen Farber / Alias : Hollywood Reporter
The movie offers more frustrations than rewards to discerning viewers of any age or gender.

Name : Rafer Guzman / Alias : Newsday
De Niro and Hathaway's charms plus a sparkling script make for feel-good fluff.

Name : Richard Roeper / Alias : Chicago Sun-Times
With some genuinely insightful dialogue, a number of truly funny bits of physical business, and small scenes allowing us to get know and like a half-dozen supporting players, The Intern grows on us from scene to scene, from moment to moment.

Name : Lindsey Bahr / Alias : Associated Press
In keeping everything so polite, The Intern, while being a pleasant and watchable movie, is also entirely ephemeral. Maybe that's why, like Meyers' other films, The Intern will likely be so re-watchable, too.

Name : Brian Truitt / Alias : USA Today
The story isn't even contrived, it's ridiculous.

Name : L.V. Anderson / Alias : Slate
Nobody does visually pleasing, occasionally funny escapist entertainment about goodhearted rich people trying their best to do the right thing better than Nancy Meyers.

Name : Ann Hornaday / Alias : Washington Post
"The Intern" feels a little bit like the tai chi exercises that Ben does in the park throughout the film - you look for something to react to and laugh at and maybe even shed a tear about, but you wind up pushing against a puff of air.

Name : Sara Stewart / Alias : New York Post
Meyers' films have always been about basically decent people navigating life's various hurdles. Here, though, her characters have gone from "It's Complicated" to "It's Pretty Straightforward, Actually."

Name : Peter Howell / Alias : Toronto Star
If only real life were like a Nancy Meyers movie.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
There are a few good laughs, but they struggle to survive amid the syrupy score, overlit interiors, and smothering sense of middle-class entitlement.

Name : Bilge Ebiri / Alias : New York Magazine/Vulture
The Intern degenerates into a series of monologues about ambition and relationships and having it all. As the speeches pile up, our goodwill dissipates, and so does the film's magic.

Name : Leah Greenblatt / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The tone remains as plush and soft-cornered as one of Meyers' ubiquitous throw pillows (though it's also knowing enough to toss off a good joke about them).

Name : David Sims / Alias : The Atlantic
Thanks largely to performances by De Niro and Hathaway, The Intern is a gentle, enjoyable fantasy-and certainly Meyers's best film in more than a decade.

Name : Joe Morgenstern / Alias : Wall Street Journal
This clumsy comedy, written and directed by Nancy Meyers, turns an implausible but intriguing premise into a tale of generational collision that reflects dimly on old and young alike.

Name : Steven Rea / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
There'd be a lot less strife and starvation, disease and dread, if Nancy Meyers ruled the world.

Name : Peter Travers / Alias : Rolling Stone
It's not much of a movie. But raging bull Robert De Niro, suited up to play for humor and heart, proves he can be a world-class charmer.

Name : Liz Braun / Alias : Toronto Sun
Only the impressive chemistry between Robert De Niro and Anne Hathaway will keep you watching; we haven't even mentioned the painfully ageist sex jokes or the silly plot developments that unfold like sitcom padding.

Name : James Berardinelli / Alias : ReelViews
In terms of comedic and dramatic content, The Intern is hit-and-miss. Notions about ageism and corporate prejudice against female CEOs are grazed but not explored in a meaningful or compelling way.

Name : Guy Lodge / Alias : Variety
It takes all the leads' considerable combined charm to forestall the aftertaste of the pic's smug life lessons and near-comically blinkered worldview.

Name : Stephen Whitty / Alias : Newark Star-Ledger
"The Intern" is like one of those candies you put in your mouth that starts off tasting sweet - until it suddenly turns lip-puckering sour.

Name : Calvin Wilson / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
These days, it's tough to find a comedy that even aspires to sophistication. "The Intern" entertainingly fills that slot.

Name : Mick LaSalle / Alias : San Francisco Chronicle
The success of this film may ride entirely on the alchemy of these particular actors, but whatever is carrying it, "The Intern" gets there.

Name : Jesse Hassenger / Alias : AV Club
This kind of unhurried, low-conflict story coming from a mainstream filmmaker might be more invigorating if not for the eventually wearying idealization of the De Niro character and the odd implications that come along with it.

Name : Wesley Morris / Alias : Grantland
There's not much here story-wise. But when Meyers wants to write an involving scene with characters thinking and feeling the way humans think and feel, you want to applaud.

Name : Manohla Dargis / Alias : New York Times
Mr. De Niro owns the movie from the moment he opens his mouth, and is staring into the camera and right at you. (Oh, yes, he's lookin' at you.) You can't look away, and soon you don't want to.

Name : James Rocchi / Alias : TheWrap
Considering the movie's fortune-cookie-style "insights" that old and young have much to learn from each other, it's only appropriate that De Niro and Hathaway's charms, and those alone, comprise the saving graces of "The Intern."

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
"The Intern" may be predictable, but it's far from empty.

Name : Stephanie Zacharek / Alias : Village Voice
The spongy subtext of this and every Meyers movie is "We're being serious, but we're also being FUN!" No viewer must ever be made to think too much, feel too much, or be left out. She doesn't so much tell a story as lead a team-building exercise.

Name : Moira MacDonald / Alias : Seattle Times
Slight but charming, Nancy Meyers' "The Intern" almost goes terribly wrong in its first minutes, but quickly rights itself.

Name : Mark Olsen / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A better, funnier and more considered movie than much of what passes for nonfranchise studio filmmaking, even as it shows a world almost exclusively white, straight and upmarket.

Name : Cath Clarke / Alias : Time Out
The movie's ideas run out quickly, but De Niro is easygoing, and The Intern is indulgent good fun. Just don't go in expecting nutrition.

Name : Kate Taylor / Alias : Globe and Mail
A movie that doesn't do justice to an invigorating premise.

Name : Ty Burr / Alias : Boston Globe
"The Intern" is bizarrely retrograde, implying that every working woman only needs a cuddly Yoda daddy to make it in the world of business. It's soft in the heart - and soft in the head.

Name : Bill Goodykoontz / Alias : Arizona Republic
"The Intern" is idiotic, unrealistic, Boomer wish fulfillment that has no business working on any level. I quite enjoyed it.

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
Meyers has wit and a solid sense of craft, but mainly she makes movies about high thread counts and comfy, pricey throw pillows.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
It spoon-feeds us vanilla fiction to the point of overdose.

Name : Stephanie Merry / Alias : Washington Post
The themes are life and death, but the tone stays breezy.

Name : Kevin P. Sullivan / Alias : Entertainment Weekly
The drama falls somewhere on the spectrum between Michael Haneke's devastating Amour and the Best Exotic Marigold Hotel movies, but the result is a film that's frank about death without leaving you cold.

Name : Mark Matousek / Alias : St. Louis Post-Dispatch
How refreshing for a film to stare death in the face and find compassion reflected in its gaze.

Name : Abby Garnett / Alias : Village Voice
The Farewell Party makes drama out of right-to-die politics and asserts that just about everyone who makes it past a certain age will have to contend with the issue in one way or another.

Name : Tirdad Derakhshani / Alias : Philadelphia Inquirer
For all its talk of death, The Farewell Party, featuring a terrific ensemble cast, is a story about life. Always honest, graceful and funny it explores with deep compassion its characters familial and romantic relationships.

Name : Colin Covert / Alias : Minneapolis Star Tribune
I can't recall any film ever making me laugh and cry in complete comic and dramatic balance like "The Farewell Party."

Name : Peter Keough / Alias : Boston Globe
A bittersweet, wryly comic, keenly observed look at senescence from Israeli directors Sharon Maymon and Tal Granit.

Name : Stephen Holden / Alias : New York Times
For all its sensitivity to the subject, "The Farewell Party" makes a number of tonal missteps .

Name : Michael Phillips / Alias : Chicago Tribune
This is straight-up commercial comedy, low-keyed division, and while it can't hold a candle to recent, dark-comic Israeli achievements such as Joseph Cedar's "Footnote," the actors more than save it.

Name : J. R. Jones / Alias : Chicago Reader
The gags in the movie's first half are so unapologetically mordant that I was disappointed to see them dwindle to nothing in the second, as so often happens in stories like this one.

Name : Kenneth Turan / Alias : Los Angeles Times
A gentle but pointed work that walks a particular line to create a specific tone, a consistently warm and comic film about an unmistakably serious subject.

Name : Vadim Rizov / Alias : AV Club
The Farewell Party leaves no doubt as to where it stands on the right to die with dignity when facing terminal illness, but it's so clumsily made that it serves only to exasperate.

Name : Randy Cordova / Alias : Arizona Republic
It never lapses into mawkishness, but remains clear-eyed and compassionate. It's not coldly clinical; instead, the characters are treated with grace and respect.

Name : Tom Long / Alias : Detroit News
It's taking a strong stand on the morality of mercy killing, no doubt, but it also acknowledges the precious glory of life. It's a rare film that can smile while studying suffering.