RAFER, HILARRY ANN V.

BACR 1-1
2020-01132-MN-0 COMM 20053
FINAL REQUIREMENT PROF. CHERRY C. PEBRE

Enter the Ship of Kindness in the

Internship: A Movie Review

We have all heard of the saying “Do not judge a book by

its cover”. Even when we were tiny tots running around,
the elderly has always put emphasis on this statement
because the “root of all evil is the absence of kindness”.

However, what will happen if you are placed in an

environment where people are constantly judging and
evaluating you? How will you push forward especially
when achievements are the basis of your success? Will
you judge everyone else like how they judge you or will
your kindness shine through?

Billy and Nick show us just how powerful kindness is

through their journey in competing for a spot in Google!

To provide a holistic review of The Internship, I broke down this paper into three parts:
Part I. The Production
Part II. The Movie
Part III. Critique

I. The Production
RAFER, HILARRY ANN V. BACR 1-1
2020-01132-MN-0 COMM 20053
FINAL REQUIREMENT PROF. CHERRY C. PEBRE

It is to no surprise that the movie turned out agreeably diverting. Afterall, we have already
witnessed Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn’s synergy nine years prior in The Wedding
Crashers (2005). Another notable aspect of this movie is that Shawn Levy’s casting crew did a
great job in ensuring the diversity of the actors seeing as to how persons of color such as Tiya
Sircar, Aasif Mandvi, and Tobit Raphael were casted. The moment I found out that Dylan
O’Brien starred in a comedy film, I was surprised considering how the actor is known for doing
more serious genres such as action and sci-fi. His performance in this movie definitely gave an
impression of how flexible of an actor he can be.

According to CNN (2013), the movie was not filmed at the Google Headquarters at California
but frankly, who would have noticed? The replica that the film crew built at the Georgia
Institute of Technology would pass as the original.

As far as the musical score goes, there really is not that much to discuss. I do not recall being
struck at a specific scene where the music played a vital role in keeping the movie intact aside
from the club scene. That is not a bad thing at all though, just further exhibits that the movie
can be just as entertaining regardless of what is playing in the background.

II. The Film

In order to still save some excitement if you, reader, ever want to check out the film, I will just
breeze through the events of the movie.

At the beginning, Billy and Nick lost their jobs at sales. Billy’s girlfriend also ends up leaving
him because he used his charm at sales in order to convince her into believing his promises
about their future, but they were all just empty words. Because of this, Billy and Nick both
ended up feeling defeated as they chat in the park. Nick acquires a job at his brother-in-law’s
mattress store, and Billy storms in to try to convince him to apply for an internship at Google.
Because the pros outweighed the cons (working with his brother-in-law who was a schmuck),
Nick agreed.
RAFER, HILARRY ANN V. BACR 1-1
2020-01132-MN-0 COMM 20053
FINAL REQUIREMENT PROF. CHERRY C. PEBRE

Lyle broke the record for the first display of non-judgment when he convinced the panel to let
Billy and Nick participate in the internship program despite their evident bluffing.

All throughout the film, their younger subordinates looked down – especially Graham – on
them because of their lack of both knowledge and skills in the programming field but despite
this, they never judged them back. They were ready to offer a helping hand to even the most
peculiar people, like the boy who they called “headphones” (who was later on revealed to be
an executive in Google pretending to be an intern in order to internally observe their
characters).

Their team initially had a bad impression of the two. However, when Billy and Nick took the
younger members out to a night of fun, they were able to get to know each other better and
found out that each and every one of them had their own struggles. The team’s bond became
stronger because of the kindness extended to them by the older gentlemen.

I cannot vouch for this film as family-friendly because there are scenes which are too explicit
for children to watch.

I found Lyle’s relationship Marielena to be uncanny. I think that the movie would have been
just fine without it, but I believe that the strange dynamics between both of the characters is
the writers’ way of putting emphasis in love blossoming because of non-prejudice.

The climax of the movie started when Billy left the team because he felt like he was weighing
him down. He became frustrated with himself because the charm that he has always relied on
was not working anymore. The team desperately needed the other half of the sales tandem
because that was Billy and Nick’s greatest suit.

It all ends well because Nick was able to get Billy back and their team of “outliers” managed to
convince multiple businesses, including Sam’s, to start store chains. They were also the team
RAFER, HILARRY ANN V. BACR 1-1
2020-01132-MN-0 COMM 20053
FINAL REQUIREMENT PROF. CHERRY C. PEBRE

chosen to work for Google because of integrity of character vouched for by “headphones”, as
opposed to Graham who was wicked and disparaging of other people. Nick was also able to
get together with Dana (who he pursued throughout the movie) because she gave him the
benefit of the doubt and was not let down.

Overall, I think what the film was trying to showcase that kindness can help you achieve great
things. Regardless of how smart you are, if you derogate your peers, people will never want to
work with you.

The Internship highlights that giving people a chance can prove to be a magical phenomenon
because it only takes an act of kindness to spark hope in people and drive them into success.

III. Critique

If there is one thing that I noticed, it is that the film glorified Google a tad bit too much. To put
my knowledge in Communication theories in use, Agenda Setting Theory can be applied to the
movie because it had the mission to put Google (which has a lot of imperfections both as a
product and an organization) in the spotlight and paint them in an ultra-positive manner.

Some of the scenes in movie could have possibly been better left out, however, the movie still
proves to be entertaining.

References
RAFER, HILARRY ANN V. BACR 1-1
2020-01132-MN-0 COMM 20053
FINAL REQUIREMENT PROF. CHERRY C. PEBRE

Kelly, H. (2013, June 5). Why Google loves 'The internship'. CNN. Retrieved from
https://edition.cnn.com/2013/06/05/tech/innovation/internship-movie-google/index.html

Levy, S. (Director). (2013). The Internship [Film]. 20th Century Fox.

The internship (2013). (2013, June 5). IMDb. Retrieved from

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt2234155/