Noah Baumbach really knows how to write amazing family dynamics. His resume would make any writer jealous from Fantastic Mr. Fox to Frances Ha to this new one. The Meyerowitz stories focuses on Baumbach’s favorite target: families broken by subtly toxic parental dynamics. Baumbach was always going to deliver a good story on this topic; what makes the guy special, however, is which maybe um…terrible actors he gets to carry the acting in this movie.
Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) is not a good father, choosing to project his own sense of self worth onto the relationships with his kids. He openly neglects Danny (Adam Sandler), seeing only qualities society would place on a failure; he barely knows his daughter Jean (Elizabeth Marvel) exists; and he narcissists the successful Matthew (Ben Stiller) to hatred of his own father. Harold then falls ill, forcing the kids to spend time together to make sure he is properly cared for because his current wife Maureen (Emma Thompson) is too much of a flighty artist to handle it on her own.
Keeping it 100: I despise two things Baumbach uses as part of the Meyerowitz pitch: 1) It’s set in New York City. 2) It follows a family of privileged artists who have zero understanding just how good they have it (how the HELL does this family live in their amazing house in a clearly well-to-do neighborhood when clearly none of them work?????). Baumbach is from Brooklyn, so I understand why he uses that setting. However, I would like to see this guy start telling stories outside of the 5 boroughs, because he understands a fundamental trait of even most dysfunctional families: empathy and love are usually still at the center. Don’t get me wrong: were they not born into money, Harold and Maureen Meyerowitz would be despicable parents. But, for all their flaws, they did just enough for the kids to not be openly vengeful, but just hurt by their parents shortcomings. In a bad movie, the kids would then immediately become their parents over a big climactic fight. In a Baumbach movie, all conflict ebbs and flows, with occasional flare ups, but mostly frustrated bickering (amusingly rendered by the director). The best example here is how Baumbach handles the kids. In theory, these 3 should HATE each other, jealous of the attention the other siblings received. However, Danny, Matthew, and Jean band together the best of themselves, and rise to the occasion, learning to enjoy the company of each other and become a better family for it, because they really do love each other. Sure their differences cause Danny and Matthew to throw down fisticuffs a bit, but after the dust settles, the 2 talk and move on like real brothers would do.
You know Dustin Hoffman, Elizabeth Marvel, and Emma Thompson were going to deliver for Baumbach (Thompson in particular was quite amusing with very little screentime). Baumbach bets big here though: trusting Adam Sandler and Ben Stiller to carry the story’s dramatic heft as Hoffman is in a hospital bed for the last hour. Stiller has also done this before for Baumbach (Greenberg); so there was a reasonable chance that Stiller could dial down his manic side and play up a version of that Greenberg character with less hate in his heart, which Stiller does quite well. Baumbach’s Sandler bet pays off, and then some: Sander rises near his Punch Drunk Love and Funny People acting peak, giving Danny justifiable resentment but a desire to be loved by others. It’s as nuanced a performance I have seen Sandler give, and gives me hope that he can still do his IQ limited fare and still turn this on whenever he wants.
Some of my friends suggested that Noah Baumbach needed Greta Gerwig to make a film worth watching. Well, the Meyerowitz stories potentially suggests the opposite (though, Ladybird this year should refute that hypothesis). As long as a dysfunctional family exists near Bushwick, Baumbach will be around to tell their story in subtle, sweet, and amusing ways.