The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED) (Noah Baumbach, 2017)

To friends, acquaintances, and strangers, the life of sculptor and retired professor Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) looks like a success, but the man himself nurtures jealousy of his peers’ wider acclaim and animosity toward an art world that has failed to appreciate him sufficiently. He sold a work to the Whitney decades ago, yet it’s indicative of his status that no one is exactly sure where it is being stored. In THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED), Harold’s self-centeredness has contributed to the strained relationship he has with the three children his four marriages have produced.

Danny (Adam Sandler) and Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), the two oldest, share a mother and the sense that they were never especially important to their father. Such treatment fuels Danny to be a doting dad with his daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten). While Matthew (Ben Stiller) is perceived, not incorrectly, to be the favored child, he carries his share of grudges regarding Harold. Despite their frustrations, all three still seek approval from him. Danny and Jean strive to secure a retrospective show of Harold’s work. Although Danny objects, Matthew tries to arrange the sale of the big, costly New York City house where Harold and his current wife Maureen (Emma Thompson) reside.

The episodic nature and title of THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES (NEW AND SELECTED) suggest that the glimpses of this dysfunctional family don’t tell everything but encapsulate the fundamental truths about them and viewpoints within this unit. Writer-director Noah Baumbach’s film depicts a period of critical transition. Danny has separated from his wife and needs direction. Eliza is starting college. Matthew is at a crossroads in his marriage and career. Harold is trying to adjust to retirement. Although the chapter-like structure leaves gaps, it contains the greatest hits and misses in Meyerowitz family history. Life brings new developments, but these events all tend to circle back to be understood through the lens of old resentments. The stories each person tells himself and herself have as much to do with constructing their identities as what actually happens.

Baumbach’s comedies about families often have a strong undercurrent of anger. MARGOT AT THE WEDDING, THE SQUID AND THE WHALE, and WHILE WE’RE YOUNG, among others, laugh at the ways people can get maligned and twisted in their most central relationships, but the humor provides a thin cover for bitterness. The characters in THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES exist in the state of a soft boil. Their emotions are adequately hot without making them hard. Baumbach crafts a warm, humane movie accepting of people in spite of their faults. The Meyerowitzes aren’t going to resolve all of their differences in the course of the film or beyond it, but Baumbach shows why blood ties and shared history can be worth saving in spite of the aggravations.

THE MEYEROWITZ STORIES cast is superb at conveying the commonly understood order and unspoken, or whispered, opinions in families. Baumbach excels at capturing the dynamic in which each person assumes the role they’ve adopted through the years whether or not they’ve changed outside the family. He’s also really sharp and funny in observing how parents and siblings don’t fully understand what the adult kids do in their jobs and how watching TV together can be as meaningful as anything in maintaining the peace.

Sandler has proven to be a good actor when working with directors who can modulate his tendencies. Here he’s quite affecting playing a loving father who transforms into an ignored little boy desperate for validation when around his dad. His tender scenes with Van Patten reveal Danny at his best. His goodness is visible in how he’s attentive in a way that Harold wasn’t and isn’t and also in how she protects him when she knows he’s vulnerable. The ease and honesty they have with one another contrasts powerfully with how Harold and Danny communicate. Hoffman is funny and tragic as a wrecking ball of a patriarch, one whose narrow vision fails to acknowledge that in chasing acceptance from the world at large he’s missed the love those closest to him are so eager to give. A life has many potential narratives, but it’s the one we select, rather than what is written for us, that determines if we are satisfied.

Grade: A

Men in Black 3

MEN IN BLACK 3 (Barry Sonnenfeld, 2012)

Agent J (Will Smith) must time-jump to the summer of 1969 to save his partner and the planet in MEN IN BLACK 3.  He’s in pursuit of Boris The Animal (Jemaine Clement), a notorious alien killer who escapes from a maximum security prison on the moon and is hellbent on visiting the past so he can eliminate Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones in the present-day scenes, Josh Brolin in 1969).

Boris succeeds, which wipes K from the memories of everyone at Men in Black headquarters except for J.  This historical revision means that K was never able to put a safety shield around Earth, thus making it susceptible to invasion from Boris’s warmongering race, the Boglodites.  New chief Agent O (Emma Thompson) figures out that time travel has been involved and dispatches J to restore order by time-jumping to a day before his gruff associate’s death at the Apollo 11 launch and stopping Boris.

MEN IN BLACK 3 arrives fifteen years after the original and a decade after the franchise’s first sequel.  Consider this installment a reunion in which Smith is in charge of assuring everyone that it will be a good time and Jones makes a token appearance because he’s obligated to do so.  Inevitably someone has work done to maintain a youthful appearance at these get-togethers.  To keep up with the times it is rendered in 3D. 

MEN IN BLACK 3 can be a pleasant reminder of goofy, special effects-laden summer blockbusters of old that weren’t preoccupied with origin stories, world-building, and their own importance and seriousness.  Director Barry Sonnenfeld’s sci-fi comedy maintains a breezy tone that keeps it agreeable even when the lightness feels more forced than natural.  The good jokes in MEN IN BLACK 3 don’t nudge the needle much on the laugh-o-meter while the unsuccessful ones land softly instead of hitting with a thud.  

The millions lavished on creature designs and action scenes are meant to impress, yet the filmmakers are less concerned with drawing attention to the expense than delighting in the absurdity of how the aliens look and the craziness of the scenarios.  Despite the huge budget, MEN IN BLACK 3 is comfortable as a B movie and isn’t trying to prove itself as anything else.

Brolin’s impersonation is so good it wouldn’t be a shock to learn that the performance is actually achieved through CGI wizardry de-aging the crusty Jones instead of a younger colleague imitating him.  In supporting roles Michael Stuhlbarg adds genuine sweetness as Griffin, an alien who can envision the multiple conclusions of every scenario, and Bill Hader gets laughs with his zany spin on Andy Warhol.

MEN IN BLACK 3’s modest charms aren’t plentiful.  The mild laughs come sporadically.  It delivers what is expected, more or less, and doesn’t strain in the effort. The eager-to-please attitude and sleek sets provide relief from the somber mood and environments in vogue in tentpole films.  As far as unnecessary sequels are concerned, MEN IN BLACK 3 is a serviceable addition to the series.  

Grade: C+