Director Noah Baumbach (left) on the set with actors Adam Sandler (center) and Dustin Hoffman (right)
THE MEYERWITZ STORIES (New and
Selected)
B-
USA (112 mi) 2017 d: Noah Baumbach
Given a limited release in theaters while also available
streaming on Netflix, this film was a surprising selection to Cannes, which had
never allowed online streaming films before, creating something of a culture clash
that was widely discussed, eventually outlawed in the future, passing a new
rule which requires competing films at Cannes to at least make an effort at
French theatrical distribution, where existing French laws mandate that films
can’t be shown on streaming services until 36 months after their theatrical
release, which seems extremely punitive, but is the final word on the
subject. Basically a bloated extension of Baumbach’s earlier and still
most successful film, The
Squid and the Whale (2005), as this similarly features another
self-centered, narcissistic blowhard whose overbearing presence dominates the
center of the film, Dustin Hoffman as the aging patriarch Harold Meyerwitz,
whose days as a relevant and defining sculptor artist have passed him by.
Instead he’s forced to watch other so-called lesser talents dominate the art
community, yet he is so vainly full of himself that no one else matters, with
others reduced to secondary status and exhausting critical scrutiny, including
his own kids who have been devastated by divorce and separation, bullying and
then barely even acknowledging them, receiving little recognition or any of his
time growing up, as he was too busy thinking about himself and his own
relatively undistinguished career (yet he constantly weighs his children’s
artistic merits against his own inflated view of himself), spending his days
fuming about his work being ignored while working as an art professor at Bard
College. With a heavily Jewish and distinctly New York City slant,
ostensibly feeling like a Woody Allen film when he loved filming on the streets
of New York, the family dysfunction on display is cringeworthy, becoming a
battle royale between two Meyerwitz sons from different marriages, misfit Danny
(Adam Sandler), the oldest, already reeling from his own divorce, where he was
a stay-at-home Dad and now has no job or work skills to speak of, and Matthew
(Ben Stiller), way across the country on the West coast, raised by a different
divorced mother in LA, a huge financial success story that his East coast
siblings could only dream about, becoming a money manager for rock stars and
the rich and famous. Both hold extreme contempt for their aging,
self-obsessed father, as they barely know the man, but also have a distorted
sibling rivalry thinking the other is the favored son. Left out of it all
is Danny’s sister Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), shy and retiring, something of a
wallflower, who’s always around but on the periphery, as the boys always take
centerstage. That’s the way it’s always been so she has no qualms about
it, as it’s more like a situation she’s grown accustomed to, as there are some
families where fathers simply extend much more attention to their sons.
Also exuding a near invisible presence is Harold’s fourth wife Maureen (Emma
Thompson), a bohemian eclectic who survives by ignoring Harold altogether,
taking trips without him, vacationing alone, while numbing the pain with some
heavy drinking, her self-medicating solution, though pretending to be sober
around Harold (who doesn’t notice).
With each child introduced with their own chapter heading,
shown through a vignette style of accumulated scenes, their distinctive
personalities are constantly on display, where there is a great deal of
agitation and personal rancor, where literally no one, not even wonder boy
Matthew, considers themselves a success, as each is unraveling from heavy doses
of personal failure and poor self-esteem, literally mired in their own
self-loathing and contempt. Appropriately enough, the film opens in one
of Danny’s rages, screaming profanities at whatever’s nearby, cars, curbs,
pedestrians, fighting a losing struggle to find a parking space on the streets of
New York, eventually forced to pay near extortion rates for a space in a
parking garage, which he finds humiliating, as what self-respecting New Yorker
accepts failure in navigating the local terrain, which is specifically designed
to make it more difficult for unfamiliar tourists who simply pay through the
nose for their naïveté. While we quickly catch onto the wavelength of
patriarchal arrogance exuded by Harold, there’s an underlying level of
annoyance and disturbance that defines these men, where just under the surface
lies intense rage exploding at any minute, making them somewhat small-minded
and detestable human beings, but then Danny shows another side, as he’s very
close to his teenage daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patton), showing remarkable instincts
with her, expressed in perhaps the most Cassavetes-like moment in any Baumbach
film, a silly father and daughter piano duet singing a song from the family
archives, Genius
Girl - The Meyerowitz Stories - YouTube (2:05), sweet, tender, and
absolutely genuine, described as “a Meyerwitz and Meyerwitz composition.”
This instant humanization is an utter delight, easily the most poignant moment
in the entire film, harkening back to the simplicity of Sandler’s early days on
Saturday Night Live, which has always
been his most charming period, Adam Sandler: The Hanukkah
Song III - SNL - YouTube (4:16). But that’s only a brief interlude,
as the next day she’s off to college, up the Hudson River, following in her
grandfather’s footsteps to Bard College, leaving an emotional void in Danny’s
life, growing even more perturbed when he discovers his father is thinking of
actually selling the Manhattan house, including most of his entire art
collection, to prospective young buyers, a handsome interracial gay couple who
have already made an offer. Having just moved back home with his father
after the divorce, this emotional upheaval is more than Danny can stand, as if
the rug is being pulled out from underneath him, but his father reassures him
it will be a family decision, in consultation with brother Matthew, which gets
his blood boiling again, wondering why that rat bastard, who has never lived
here, gets any say in the matter.
Matthew happens to be in town on business and decides to
meet his father for lunch, offering financial advice about the home, but they
end up speaking over and on top of one another, both clearly infatuated with
themselves and both refusing to listen, with Harold growing more and more
irritated, walking out of the restaurant in protest, “like McEnroe,” a routine
he pulls not just once, but twice, so by the third time when he runs away,
Matthew has to chase him down on the street, both startled by the strange turn
of events. But things grow even more uncomfortable when they both pay a
visit to Matthew’s mother, Harold’s second wife (Candice Bergen, who has since
remarried into extravagant wealth), especially when she expresses sincere
regret for not being a better mother to Harold’s three children, which sends
both of them reeling out the door in shock, though likely for different
reasons, as with Harold it’s all about himself, literally preening, exhibiting
obnoxious behavior that is more than Matthew can stand, getting into a shouting
match on the street with his father, exasperated at how little his father
actually values him, so he offers retaliatory insults of his own, screaming at
him as he drives away. This sets up the weirdly uncomfortable finale,
where Harold ends up comatose in the hospital from a brain seizure with blood
rushing into his brain, where he’s literally at death’s door, but due to such a
dysfunctional internal family dynamic, the doctors refuse to provide any
information to the kids, which gets more absurd by the minute, becoming a game
of musical chairs, as doctors and treating nurses simply disappear, leaving the
beleaguered family to figure it all out. While it does bring the three
siblings together, for better or for worse, spending time at their father’s
side at the hospital, but after a suspicious rough patch they seem to set aside
their differences, where it’s actually a nightmarish childhood story by Jean
that seems to quell the family resentment, with both brothers rallying to her
defense, though the awkwardness with their father remains. Do they love
him or hate him? Feeling more like a chaotic mess than a revelation,
there are more than a few mawkish and slightly amateurish sequences, with Adam
Sandler once again playing an infantile adult, where his films are simply a
glorification of immaturity, which apparently sells well at the box
office. While he attempts to extend his range here (especially with his
daughter), the buffoonery remains (especially with his brother), creating an
uneven realm of emotions, where the most exhilarating moments are to be found
in Eliza’s student films, which are manic diversions from reality, graphically
explicit and sexually obsessed, where it’s hard to think of any father so
easily accepting such a lurid display of their daughter’s nudity. While
it’s a male-dominated film, with Hoffman, Stiller and Sandler getting
centerstage, strangely enough it’s the smaller moments with Eliza and Jean that
are easily the most precious and gratifying, remaining unheralded and unsung,
like they are in many families, dwarfed by the male antics of thoroughly
detestable characters.
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