This
scene isn't in the movie, but it might have been fitting if The
Internship had ended with stars Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson wearing
ruby red shoes while clicking their heels and dreamily whispering,
"There's no place like Google; there's no place like Google."
The
new comedy depicts Google as corporate America's equivalent of the
Emerald City from The Wizard of Oz - a colourful place where all the
food is free, interesting people and gadgets loom around every corner
and dreams can come true for those who think big enough, work hard
enough and collaborate as a team to make it happen.
It's
a nearly two-hour showcase for Google's idealistic culture and for a
product line that's becoming deeply ingrained in people's
technology-dependent lives.
The Internship,
which hits theaters on Friday, will likely be a hit among Google-loving
geeks and fans of feel-good flicks, especially those with an affinity
for the riffing and mirthful chemistry between Vaughn and Wilson. The
two are back together for the first time since Wedding Crashers came out
eight years ago.
But the film may not create
such warm and fuzzy feelings among Google critics who view the company
as a self-interested bully that tramples over copyrights, intrudes into
people's privacy and stifles competition by abusing its power as the
internet's main gateway.
All of these concerns
have been the focal points of high-profile regulatory investigations
and lawsuits. Yet none of that is raised in the movie, which revolves
around a couple of 40-something-old guys who become clueless interns at
Google after losing their jobs selling a product - wristwatches -
supplanted by innovation.
Everyone enamored with Google after seeing the movie should keep one thing in mind.
"This
is not a documentary on Google where you come in and say, 'This is
exactly the way things are done there,'" Vaughn told an audience of
real-life Google interns and technology reporters after a screening of
The Internship in San Francisco.
The biggest
misnomer about the movie revolves around Google's summer internship
programme. As the movie portrays, Google does indeed select about 1,500
elite university students from around the world to participate, but the
film conjures an imaginary curriculum for the sake of entertainment.
In
the film, the interns are separated into teams that compete in
different disciplines to win the ultimate prize: full-time jobs at
Google. At one point, the teams even engage in a game of Quidditch, the
mythical sport that aspiring wizards in Harry Potter play to prove their
prowess. None of this is actually part of Google's real-life programme,
according to the company.
Another scene
suggests that Google puts a premium on training employees to work a
customer help line - a concept that will seem incredulous to anyone who
has ever had a problem with a Google service and tried to reach a human
being on the telephone. Like many other Silicon Valley companies, Google
directs people to look through its own online help articles or ask
other users on message boards.
Amid the
fictional hijinks, the movie casts a spotlight on Google's ever-growing
stable of products beyond internet search, including YouTube, Gmail,
Maps, Chrome Web browser and language translation. Google's driverless
cars get a cameo, but its wearable computing device, Google Glass,
doesn't appear. Device connoisseurs will notice characters using a phone
made by Google-owned Motorola Mobility and devices with Google's Nexus
brand. The free advertising came without Google contributing to the
film's nearly $60 million budget.
Some of
Google's rivals also get screen time. There are glimpses of Apple's
iPhone and iPad during the film. Facebook's photo-sharing service
Instagram gets a shoutout. Location-sharing service Foursquare gets a
passing mention, although not in a flattering way. A character describes
Foursquare's tracking ability as creepy, a description often slapped on
Google services that monitor people's whereabouts and preferences.
Although
the movie does have some good-natured fun at the expense of the
intelligent oddballs working at Google, it mostly focuses on the
positive side of a company whose motto is "don't be evil."
Likening
Google to an Oz-like oasis isn't totally farfetched. The company's
headquarters in Mountain View, California, does sometimes seem like a
fantasyland - a cross between a surreal think tank and a college campus
sheltered from the worries and hardship of the world around it.
To
make Google seem even more mystical, the movie's director, Shawn Levy,
said he filmed the first 15 minutes or so of the movie in dull, bland
colors. That way, the bright reds, yellows and greens splattered across
the company's headquarters seem even more vibrant.
In
some instances, it's not really Google's headquarters. Much of the
movie was filmed at Georgia Tech and other parts of the Atlanta area.
Other
Silicon Valley companies, most notably Facebook and Apple, have created
their own versions of Shangri-La, but Google's allure stood out to
Vaughn a couple years ago when he first began mulling his idea for The
Internship.
"Google was the company that seemed the most interesting to me," Vaughn said. "It was the right complement to this story."
One
of the movie's producers, Sandra J. Smith, used to work in the tech
industry and tapped into some of those connections to set up the early
meetings with Google. The company agreed to help out with the movie,
without any veto power over the script, after Levy promised Google
officials the movie wouldn't be cynical or mean-spirited.
"In
retrospect, the amount of creative autonomy that they handed over to me
was excellent, but also it could have really bitten them," Levy said
during an interview with The Associated Press at Google's headquarters.
"It turned out in a way that we're all happy."
Just
as Google didn't pay for its products to appear in the movie,
filmmakers didn't pay for Google's assistance or access to its
headquarters.
Google's cooperation stands in
contrast to Facebook's refusal to participate in the making of The
Social Network, a 2010 film that drew a darker portrait of its founder,
Mark Zuckerberg. In that instance, Facebook stressed the movie wasn't
anything like what really happened within the company.
The
Internship doesn't directly mention Google's co-founders, Larry Page
and Sergey Brin, though Brin makes two short appearances playing
himself. Brin is seen happily cruising around the Google grounds when
the characters played by Vaughn and Wilson arrive to start their
internship. Brin also appears near the end of the movie to congratulate
the interns.
The first appearance wasn't even
in the script, according to Levy. The director said he simply saw a
bearded guy riding around Google's headquarters on an elliptical bicycle
while wearing clothing better suited for yoga. When someone told Levy
who that person was, he asked Brin if he could film him. Brin obliged.
Page,
who is Google's CEO and is less outgoing than Brin, doesn't appear in
the movie, though he wanted to see it made in hope that it will get more
young people interested in pursuing careers in technology.
"The
reason we got involved in that is because computer science has a
marketing problem," Page said last month during an appearance at a
Google conference for programmers in San Francisco. "We are the nerdy
curmudgeons."
Page believes the movie's
coolest character is a headphone-wearing, mostly silent engineer who
ends up playing a key role in the climactic scene. "We are really
excited about that," he said.
Although he said he didn't set out to make an ode to Google, Levy leaves little doubt about his admiration for the company.
"I
realized what they're about is really a certain quality of personhood
that yes, has to do with intelligence, but has as much to do with
ethical soundness and compassion and a sense of trying to do more good
than harm in this world," Levy told the AP.
While
meeting with Google's real-life interns, Levy also hailed a company
ethos that has become known as "Googleyness." When asked at the Google
screening how he defines that term, Levy said: "It's all the things that
make you a complete person beyond being
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