Meet the Parents

View Date: October 7th, 2000

Cast :

Director: Jay Roach 

Meet the Parents is the darker side of the Murphy’s Law style of comedy rules.  Obviously, that means that if there’s something that can go wrong, it will, but it delves deeper than that.  If someone says, don’t do something, it will happen, if someone hates something, they’ll be forced into it and mix in the fish out of water cultural differences, these will all come up and be faced, hilarity may, or may not ensue.  In Meet the Parents, it does not.  Director Jay Roach bogs down this comic formula with his left over bathroom humor that he failed to use in the last Austin Powers movie.  By doing this, he robs Robert DeNiro of another satirically spooky and comedic performance, and forces Ben Stiller to try and do something he’s not good at, playing comic lead. Putting it all together, Meet The Parents has an interesting premise and some funny, uncomfortable moments, but the overall effect gets drowned in the sea of muck that plays an important part in this film.

The first touch of humor/sign of impending doom is Stiller’s name, Greg Focker (let the jokes and hilarity ensue) who is a male nurse (oooh, the laughs are building now) and wants to propose marriage to his girlfriend.  Of course, after a convenient phone conversation, he decides that he must do the honorable thing of asking her parents permission.  Conveniently, a trip to their house is planned for her sisters wedding, and Greg sees this as his opportunity.  Her father (DeNiro) is an over loving, overprotective ex-rare flower dealer (allegedly).  Can you see the jokes building?  Let me throw in a few more instances that are played for laughs.  The ashes of DeNiro’s dead mother overlook the dinner table, the family cat is potty trained, the brother is a pothead who happens to be Greg’s size, and Greg’s luggage gets lost at the airport.  A high school student could script the situations and jokes that come about here as a result of these and other occurrences.  Its just a shame that Roach degrades it into a series of predictable situations, exploitation of cultural differences, 80’s sitcom style misunderstandings and bathroom humor We’ve outgrown them, Jay Roach has not.  He shows some flashes of incite and humor, but for the most part, he spoils all of his best jokes in the previews to get us in the theater.  I felt cheap, used and violated, as if I was lured into the theater under the pretenses of something more than just patchwork SNL skits, with glimmers of smiles and chuckles, but nothing more.

Someone needs to tell Ben Stiller that he is not a lead comedy actor.  He proved in Permanent Midnight and Your Friends and Neighbors that he can handle dramatic roles, but has yet to prove that he can carry a comedy, his supposed forte.  Something About Mary’s success came from the material and ensemble cast, however Stiller’s adorable neurosis and insecurities wear thin quickly here, and he becomes nothing more than a prop.  DeNiro has some moments, and the most fun, by, as he did in Analyze This, capitalizing on his image and intimidation by playing it soft, yet hard, but even he gets sucked down eventually, reduced to reciting poetry and being covered in waste, tsk tsk.  As the fiancé, Polo (in her first major role since one of my guilty pleasures, Mystery Date) exists only as the adorable foil for the humor, never really finding any rhythm or inciting anything relatable or funny.  Even the normally reliable Owen Wilson, as a self-made millionaire ex-boyfriend (yes, you knew there had to be one of those in this story) cannot pull this movie above what it sinks into. 

Ultimately, Meet the Parents self-destructs amidst a series of misfired humor attempts.  Humor works best the closer it hits to relating to its audience.  Situations that we can see ourselves in elicit laughter because we can imagine and empathize with the characters. There were points that I did laugh at, but they were few and too far in between. The majority consists of cheap attempts at 90’s style slapstick humor that was handled much better in There’s Something About Mary.  This could have been an interesting companion to that film, but instead tries to head down new roads, stumbling at every turn.  Maybe I just don’t get it, maybe, being single, I can’t relate.  But there are more of my demographic than any other, and the question to be posed is, who is this film aimed at. My heart wasn’t touched, my funny bone was teased, but never tickled and by the end my brain and body were weary, bored and a bit disgusted.  I can relate with your frustration at the end Ben. ($$ out of $$$$)

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