Wistful ‘Brad’s Status’ puts Ben Stiller in midlife mode, again

Attention, all white men between 40 and 60: You can cancel your midlife crisis, because Ben Stiller will have it for you.

Through “Greenberg” (2010), “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty” (2013) and “While We’re Young” (2014), Stiller has been the poster child for rethinking one’s life choices and contemplating a radical change. And in “Brad’s Status,” writer-director Mike White takes him through the most navel-gazing trip of all.

Stiller’s character, Brad Sloan, is on a trip of rediscovery, but it’s not supposed to be his trip. He’s accompanying his 17-year-old son, Troy (Austin Abrams), who’s scoping out colleges in the Boston area. Brad tries to reassure Troy that it’s OK if he doesn’t get into his first choice — after all, Brad got waitlisted at Yale, but got a great education from Tufts. His ego is dented when Troy informs him he’s aiming for Harvard and that his counselor thinks he can get into any school he wants.

Despite a request from his wife, Melanie (Jenna Fischer), that he “be present” for Troy, Brad finds his thoughts wandering to himself. He looks at his life as the head of a small nonprofit in Sacramento and sees how his college friends surpassed him on the success ladder.

Billy (Jemaine Clement) sold his tech company at 40 and retired to Maui. Jason (Luke Wilson) is a hedge-fund billionaire with a private plane. Nick (played by White) is a successful director in Hollywood, recently married to his husband — a wedding to which Brad was not invited. And Craig (Michael Sheen) is a former White House aide who writes best-selling books and is a cable-news pundit.

As Brad attempts to boost his perceived status, particularly in Troy’s eyes, the results are awkward — whether it’s upgrading their airline seats or trying to finagle a rescheduled interview appointment at Harvard’s admissions department. Trying to call in a favor from Craig makes Brad feel even smaller.

White (whose screenplays include “School of Rock” and this year’s “Beatriz at Dinner”) uses his dry-to-parched humor to let Brad wallow in his self-loathing for a solid hour. Much of the movie is an internal monologue, an incessant voiceover illustrated with Brad’s idea of the life his old school chums must be having without him.

His lament goes on until White finally calls him on his bullcrap in the form of Troy’s friend Ananya (Shazi Raja), an Indian-American Harvard music student. Ananya listens to Brad’s complaints and shuts him down: “You’re really lucky. You’re 50 years old and you still think the world was made for you.”

Brad’s inevitable epiphany is still a good 20 minutes away, but Ananya’s monologue essentially gives away the game. Stories like this, where the semi-prosperous white male laments that things aren’t better in his life, are refuges of privilege, pity parties for characters who, as Ananya puts it, “have enough.” After “Brad’s Status,” one hopes the movies have had enough of self-absorbed men at midlife.