Clothes Make the ‘Intern’

As far as the 21st century is concerned, Ben Whittaker might as well be dead.

Whittaker, the 70-year-old titular character played by Robert De Niro in “The Intern,” sports more gray than the Confederates at Manassas, more wrinkles than a balled-up fitted sheet. Television networks don’t care if he watches their programs. Advertisers don’t beg him to buy their products.

In a culture that worships the young, Ben is irrelevant. And his ever-present tie shows you just what a relic he is.

That’s right. Ben Whittaker not only knows how to tie a tie, he actually wears one. Willingly. “I’m comfortable in a suit,” he tells his new boss, Jules (Anne Hathaway). In an office of untucked T-shirts and flannel, Ben stands alone — an elder traveler from a more refined era.

[lz_ndn video= 29481119]

But even if MTV isn’t paying attention to Ben, his co-workers are. And, to their own surprise, they like what they see in the film, which opens Sept. 25.

“Look and learn, boys,” Jules says, gesturing to Ben, “because this is what cool is.” Jules is giving voice to something most of us already know, even if we’re loathe to admit it: Clothes do make the man.

Relics — true relics — are objects of great value, worth treasuring and even venerating.

Look at the silver screen’s super spies — the very definition of men that other men want to be and that women want to be around. Napoleon Solo (Henry Cavill) from this year’s “Man From U.N.C.L.E.” would rather lose his gun than his three-pieced suit. Ethan Hunt from “Mission: Impossible — Rogue Nation” arguably does his best work while wearing a tux. In “Kingsman: The Secret Service,” our heroes operated out of a high-class tailor shop. And as we all await “Spectre” this fall, we know James Bond doesn’t cotton to casual Fridays.

Television has its share of well-dressed men, too. “Downton Abbey” spawned fashion lines. And before it ended its run this spring, AMC’s “Mad Men” was the gold cufflink standard of men’s fashion. So alluring did Don Draper look that many viewers were quite willing to overlook his sexism. The New York Post even ran a story titled “Why New York Women Wish They Lived in the ‘Mad Men’ Era.”

“When I watch ‘Mad Men,’ I think, ‘Wouldn’t it have been great to date a man who knows what he likes to drink, who pulls out the chair, who dresses up and is clean shaven and at least wears a sport jacket?’ It’s sexy,” Melanie Notkin, author of the book “Otherhood: Modern Women Finding a New Kind of Happiness,” told the Post.

We dumped formal dinner parties for microwaved meals on couches.

But as Notkin suggests, it’s not all about that sport jacket. How a man dresses is cinematic shorthand for who that man is. And, at least on screen, that man is typically polite, suave, confident. He’d rather talk than text, opens doors for the lady, and cares about what other people think. “The Intern’s” Ben Whittaker feels like a caretaker of not just a forgotten age, but an age we’d do well to remember. He’s a reminder that taking care of oneself, and caring for others, is something that doesn’t and shouldn’t go out of style.

“Manners maketh man,” says spy Harry Hart in “Kingsman,” and there’s truth in that — even if we’re not always so sure what good manners really are anymore. We rebelled against the strict social conformity of the 1950s and ‘60s and are still rebelling today. We dumped formal dinner parties for microwaved meals on couches, traded our ties for comfortable tees. “Just do it,” we say. We’re a nation of rebels, after all, and we didn’t want to be beholden to society’s pointless notions of niceties anymore.

But it’s only now that we’re beginning to wonder whether those notions had a point, after all.

Ben Whittaker is a relic, sure — but maybe the best possible way. Relics — true relics — are objects of great value, worth treasuring and even venerating. They aren’t just pieces of the past. They may look a little old, sure. But there’s a beauty in them that’s still beautiful — and relevant — today.