While We’re Young stars Ben Stiller and Naomi Watts as Josh and Cornelia, a fortysomething married couple living in New York, whose lives are upended by their new friendship with younger, hipper Jamie and Darcy (Adam Driver and Amanda Seyfried).

For his last film, Frances Ha, writer-director Noah Baumbach successfully conveyed both the anxiety and the excitement of youth; While We’re Young, meanwhile, is a sharp account of life in the trenches of the mid-40s.

Indeed, While We’re Young also has plenty to say about the generational differences; in particular, the gulf between busy fortysomething professionals and twentysomething urban hipsters. In their way, Stiller and Driver are both illustrative of their respective generations, and Stiller’s frustrated neurosis, increasingly aware of his place in the trenches of early middle age, plays well against Driver’s gangly affability.

This is a lively, buoyant comedy, sparkling the wit and insight, whose intellectual ambitions are perfectly matched by strong, intuitive performances.

See While We’re Young in cinemas from April 3
www.whilewereyoung.co.uk