This is very much a "white people's problems" movie - kinda petty and a little navel gazing. Concerning a leftish leaning father whose trip with his son to Boston for college pre-interviews brings up his worries about how he's faring in comparison to his old school colleagues, there's a lot of voice over narration and close ups on Ben Stiller's perturbed face. And the self-evident thing (that he appears to be doing reasonably well and his complaints that he's not super-rich and famous are petty marginal distractions) takes until well after halfway through the film to even vaguely become apparent to him. As internal revelations go, it's not exactly mindblowing.
Which is a pity as writer-director Mike White has proved himself talented at unpacking the foibles of progressives (most noticeably recently with the TV series "Enlightened"). And the four friends that Stiller compares himself too (played by White, a surprisingly sexy Jermaine Clement, Luke Wilson and a particularly unctuous Michael Sheen) are not uninteresting characters and could probably use a bit more depth. But all in all this doesn't really give a lot for the 90-odd minutes of screentime.
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