Although it debuted on Netflix with little fanfare, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is one of literate auteur Noah Bambauch’s finest films. Bolstered by an incredible cast, The Meyerowitz Stories plays on recurring Bambauch themes with flair and humor.
The Meyerowitzes are a complicated Manhattan-based family of intellectuals and eccentrics, further knotted by a web of divorce and estrangement. Harold (Dustin Huffman) is the patriarch, a fascinating but selfish sculptor whose work is fading into obscurity. We meet three of his children: Danny (Adam Sandler) and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), both struggling in disappointing middle-age doldrums, are from a fractured early marriage, whereas the successful Matthew (Ben Stiller) was raised more attentively with another woman. Harold’s children are forced to deal with decades-old anger and resentment after the aging artist is hospitalized with a potentially fateful brain injury.
These are only the primary figures in a terrific ensemble — we also encounter some of the grandchildren, ex-wives, and dementia-addled masturbators that occupy the fringes of this generational clusterfuck. It is an absolute joy to watch these lovable oddballs, such vividly sketched composites of repression and anxiety, interact with one another. Whether the family is talking about the Mets, looking for parking, or destroying an elderly man’s car, each conversation is a power struggle of epic proportions. Baumbach’s witty, charming script is often self-consciously cute, but never at the expense of characters that, warts and all, are treated with endearing sympathy. The Meyerowitz Stories has a skillful knack for evoking unspoken histories and strained relationships with just a telling line or subtle facial expression. The dynamic here is similar to that of Transparent, although impressively conveyed in a far shorter timeframe.
The film also knows its way around a joke. The Meyerowitz Stories is frequently a laugh-out-loud film, one which combines the combative verbal barbs of The Squid and the Whale with the broader, more physical humor of Mistress America. Like Paul Thomas Anderson, Baumbach enjoys repackaging Adam Sandler’s angry, damaged man-boy in a more realistic setting, although with decidedly more empathetic results. The entire cast is superb, with Ben Stiller and Elizabeth Marvel, in particular, impressing.
Baumbach loves a mess, and this is one of his most bittersweet examinations of familial dysfunction. Characters mostly talk at one another, pushing their own agendas without even pretending to listen to each other — the dialogue is full of casual disses that sting like savage burns. Yet, their is a sense of hope and pathos underlining all of the angst and rancor. Unlike, say, the family from Margot at the Wedding, I’d actually like to get invited to Thanksgiving dinner with the Meyerowitzes (let’s just hope they wouldn’t serve shark). The Meyerowitz Stories show Baumbach’s ability to meld poignant drama with snappy humor, creating movies that feel like newly discovered NYC gems from Woody Allen’s prime.
arthousegrindhouse.wordpress.com 