Tiya Sircar | Through the Shattered Lens

In 2o13’s The Internship, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn play Nick and Billy, two longtime salesman who, having lost their jobs, apply for an internship at Google. Despite there not being any logical reason for either one of them to be given a spot, Nick and Billy are accepted. Suddenly, these two middle-aged guys who know next to nothing about programming or the Internet find themselves at the Google campus. Teaming up with a group of much younger outcasts (albeit very smart outcasts), Nick and Billy compete for a job at Google.

(Personally, the only job I would want at Google would be designing the Google Doodle.)

At first, no one is happy about having to work with Nick and Billy. Nick and Billy are adults, the type who still use landline phones and wonder why the kids are so obsessed with looking at a little screen. They’re loud. They make crude jokes and they don’t understand stuff like safe spaces. They fall for obvious pranks, like being sent to a college campus to track down “Professor Charles Xavier.” This leads to them both getting knocked out by a bald man in a wheelchair. “Professor Xavier’s a total dick!” Billy gasps.

Eventually, though, Nick and Billy start to win everyone over. Their old school competitiveness comes in handy during a game of Quidditch. They know how to talk to women at bars. They know how to appeal to someone running an old-fashioned business. But will that be enough to win them a job at Google?

Back when the Onion was funny, one of their best headlines was ‘The Internship’ Poised To Be Biggest Comedy Of 2005! The joke, of course, was that the film was coming out in 2013. The headline worked because it was true. The film felt very much out-of-place in the world of 2013. The majority of the film’s humor came from Nick and Billy not really knowing what Google was but, by 2013, even the most cranky of boomer grandparents were using Google to search for their Facebook password. Nick and Billy were not boomers. They may have been older than the other interns but still, it’s hard to believe that two guys in their mid-40s would be that clueless about everything from the Internet to the identity of Charles Xavier. I mean, the X-Men movies were kind of a big deal.

The other thig that dated the film was its portrayal of Google as essentially just being a fun playground full of nerdy prodigies who just needed someone to teach them how to party. By 2013, everyone knew that Google was a powerful and somewhat intimidating company. Indeed, at its weakest, the film basically feels like a 2-hour commercial for Google. Never mind that, by 2013, Google was so big and omnipresent that it really didn’t need to advertise.

So, with all that in mind, why do I find myself watching this movie whenever I happen to come across it? First off, as uneven as the movie is, it is funny. The Quidditch scene did make me laugh. John Goodman’s and Will Ferrell’s unhinged cameos made me laugh, almost despite myself. The scene where Nick and Billy annoy the group by misinterpreting what is meant by “coding” made me laugh, if just because of how bizarrely enthusiastic Nick and Billy were when they convinced themselves that their internship director was a Jeff Goldblum fan. (It makes no sense but just go with it.) Most importantly, Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn made me laugh. There was absolutely no way to make it plausible that Nick and Billy would be that clueless about technology but Wilson and Vaughn really threw themselves into their roles and, as a result, I’m always willing to forgive some of the film’s missteps. The mix of Vaughn’s overage frat boy goofiness and Wilson’s mellow spaciness always makes me laugh more than it probably should. They’re a good comedic team and they’re both just so damn earnest in this movie that it works a lot better than it really should. In the end, you do find yourself rooting for them. They’re two hard-workers who like to play hard and who have the courage to reinvent themselves. What’s more American than that?

(Even more importantly, when you come across the film on cable, you’re free to pretend that it actually came out in 2005, back when the plot would have actually made more sense.)

If any film lives up to the term guilty pleasure, it’s The Internship.

Previous Guilty Pleasures

It’s become a bit of a cliché that all Lifetime and Hallmark Christmas movies take place in a small town and feature someone returning to visit relatives for the holidays. Christmas Lost and Found, however, breaks with tradition. While it is true that film begins with Whitney Kennison (Tiya Sircar) returning to her former hometown so she can spend the Christmas with her grandmother (Diane Ladd), the hometown in this case is Chicago.

(Of course, in all fairness, I guess we should keep in mind that Whitney left Chicago for New York City, where she found employment as an event planner. And, from what I’ve seen, it does appear that a lot of people in New York consider almost every other city in America to be a small town by comparison. That being said, I live in Dallas and I spend my holidays in Fort Worth so, to me, both New York and Chicago are huge metropolises.

Anyway, where was I?)

Whitney is an extremely successful in event planner in New York City but her success has come at a cost Whitney is so driven to succeed and such a workaholic that she’s running the risk of forgetting about the things that make life worthwhile, things like love and family.

Fortunately, Grandma’s here with her box of ornaments!

The ornaments are several years old, each one representing a different Christmas that Whitney spent with her grandmother. (For instance, a snow flake ornament represents that Christmas when they got snowed in.) Grandma gives Whitney the box of ornaments and tells her to keep them safe until it’s time to decorate the tree. However, the very next morning, Whitney is cleaning the house and the ornaments accidentally get thrown out!

Terrified that she’s lost the ornaments and ruined Christmas foever, Whitney puts off telling Grandma what happened. However, then the notes start to show up, rhyming riddles that inform Whitney that she’s going to have to go on a scavenger hunt across Chicago to get the ornaments back. Now, this may sound like the set up for a holiday-themed horror movie but have no fear! The first riddle says that it might sound like a stunt but promises that it will be fun.

Working with the neighbor, Brian (Edward Ruttle), Whitney goes searching for both the ornaments and, in a larger sense, Christmas itself. With each ornament that she finds, she’s reminded of yet another Christmas. The unseen letter writer continues to give Whitney tasks, making her write a letter to Santa Claus at one point. While Whitney searches for the ornaments, she also tries to figure out the identity of the letter writer. And, of course, she also has to finish designing a department store display window because …. well, why not?

How you react to this movie will probably depend on how much tolerance you have for Lifetime holiday movies in general. This is an unabashedly sentimental film and it takes place in a world that’s almost devoid of cynicism. You have to be willing to accept that someone was somehow able to put together an extremely elaborate scavenger hunt and have it play out without a hitch. Is the film implausible? Kinda. And if that matters to you, you’re probably not into Lifetime Christmas movies.

As for me, I always get sentimental around this time of year so I enjoyed Christmas Lost and Found. Edward Ruttle was likable as the neighbor and he and Tiya Sircar had enough chemistry to make them pleasant to watch on screen. And, of course, you’ve got the great Diane Ladd playing Whitney’s grandmother. It’s hard to think of anyone who could have done a better job with the role.

If you’re not naturally inclined to like these type of movies, Christmas Lost and Found probably won’t convert you. But if you enjoy sentimental holiday entertainment, Christmas Lost and Found delivers exactly what it promises.