Intern

Rating

Director

Michael Lange

Screenplay

Caroline Doyle, Jill Kopelman

Length

1h 30m

Starring

Dominique Swain, Ben Pullen, Peggy Lipton, David Deblinger, Joan Rivers, Kathy Griffin, Billy Porter, Anna Thompson, Paulina Porizkova, Jasm Urbaniak

MPAA Rating

R

Review

PREFACE:
In the early 2000s, I was writing reviews for an outfit called Apollo Guide Reviews. That website has since been closed down.

Attempting to reconstruct those reviews has been an exercise in frustration. Having sent them to Apollo Guide via email on a server I no longer have access to (and which probably doesn’t have records going back that far), my only option was to dig through The Wayback Machine to see if I could find them there. Unfortunately, while I found a number of reviews, a handful of them have disappeared into the ether. At this point, almost two decades later, it is rather unlikely that I will find them again.

Luckily, I was able to locate my original review of this particular film. Please note that I was not doing my own editing at the time, Apollo Guide was. As such, there may be more than your standard number of grammatical and spelling errors in this review. In an attempt to preserve what my style had been like back then, I am not re-editing these reviews, which are presented as-is.

REVIEW:
In the fashion industry, a leak is almost as disastrous as a bad handbag review. At Skirt Magazine, there’s some insider-trading going on and that’s just the biggest trend.

Dominique Swain (Lolita) stars as Jocelyn Bennett, a young photographer slumming as an intern at a fashion magazine. It’s not as exciting as she wishes, but “you have to start somewhere.” The only person not using her is handsome Brit Paul Rochester (Ben Pullen) who’s as down-to-earth as she is. Jocelyn has a crush on him and would act on it if he weren’t involved with a vain model (Leilani Bishop). On top of everything, somebody’s leaking fashion news to Vogue and no one can figure out who it is. Roxanne Rochet (Peggy Lipton), the editor-in-chief, seeks the fashion industry’s Deep Throat (Bill Raymond) whose Turrets syndrome is a little too obvious.

Intern is a comedy that rarely takes itself seriously and when it does, it seems awfully contrived. From the movie’s horrendous song-and-dance opening sequence, it’s obvious that the movie was meant for the Sundance crowd it opened for.

Swain is talented, but often lets her skills lap in favour of senseless humour. Pullen, on the other hand, has a Hugh Grant quality and while he’s sexy, he’s also as stiff as the aforementioned Brit and far less funny. The rest of the cast inhabits the standard fashion stereotypes. Homosexuals and self-centred drama queens abound as the film doesn’t just poke fun at the glamour and frivolity of the fashion industry.

Kathy Griffin is funny as the haughty Cornelia, but no different than her zany character on television’s Suddenly Susan. She’s not in the movie enough to make a difference anyway. Joan Rivers again proves that her talent is buried and not always easy to unearth, in her role as the doting grandmother of fashion at Skirt.

There are dozens of top fashion figures who make appearances in the film. Andre Leon Talley appears several times, including one scene in which he’s sitting around a table discussing trends with Gwyneth Paltrow and Kevyn Aucoin, among others. Other fashion figures such as Tommy Hilfinger, Diane von Ferstenberg and Kenneth Cole make cameo appearances.

Most of the humour follows a simple television sit-com format, with lots of semi-witty one-liners that have no substance. For example, Chi Chi (Paulina Porizkova) passes out in her office at the revelation that an article has been leaked to Vogue and an assistant is asked if Chi Chi has been eating enough. The assistant retorts, “She had an apple two days ago. She should be fine.” It’s these not-so-funny television-like moments that make Intern slow and dull.

In addition to comedy that rarely works, the film really doesn’t have anything significant to say. It exists simply to weave together a Cinderella tale and a story of industrial espionage. Intern is as shallow as the fashion industry and far less interesting.

Review Written

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