Review 564: The Meyerowitz Stories

The Meyerowitz Stories is a touchingly tragic,    look at dysfunctional families, another showcase for some superb writing and directing from Noah Baumbach and some excellent acting from his talented cast.

Danny Meyerowitz (Adam Sandler) is an unemployed single father who moves back in with his father Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman)

Tonely, The Meyerowitz Stories seems more in line with the works of Wes Anderson than what we've become accustomed to from Noah Baumbach. It's about a family that from their very

Structually, Noah Baumbach breaks this film down into little Woody Allen esque vignettes, each is used to highlight the Meyerowitz children's relationship with their father and enhance the larger story.

the score by Randy Newman is wonderfuly piano driven, the costumes are terrific, the

Adam Sandler (in a welcome break from the low brow comedies that he's become notorious for starring in by this point) delivers a refreshinly nuanced performance playing Danny Meyerowitz

As Alonso Duralde eloquently stated "Sandler and Stiller have a wonderful anti-chemistry." They're two characters who've never really gotten along with each other and have always competed for their father's attention

Ben Stiller  Matthew is the most successful of the Meyerowitz siblings but it doesn't have a meaning. He's a successful financier but he still feels creatively unfulfilled. All he really wants is his fathers approval and who doesn't want that? Unfortunately, it's an almost pathological need for that approval

Harold is the patriarch of the Meyerowitz family: Jean, Matthew and Danny are all products of three marriges (four his children claim but the first one was annulled so it doesn't really matter).

He posseses the intellect and the quick-witted personality to command a room, but he’s also an insufferable, self-pitying boor, forever prattling on about how his work deserved a wider audience.

Harold is too busy singing his own praises, passive aggressively insulting his children, whilist at the same time boasting about Matthew's accomplishments to notice what truly matters. Whilist he's made a career as a moderately successful sculptor and college professor, it's ubundantly clear that he's a hasbeen. 

House of Cards and Homeland alumni Elizabeth Marvel is also  Jean Meyerowitz, Danny's sister and Matthew's half-sister.

Emma Thompson (in a role that casts her completely against type) is practically unrecognisible playing Maureen, Harold fourth, alchoholic wife.

Grace Van Patten is true find in this film playing Eliza Meyerowitz, Danny Meyerowitz's daughter who specialises in making provocative short films.

Judd Hirsch also has a very memorable appearence in this film playing L.J. Shapiro, a successful fellow artist and Harold's old friend.

4.5/5.

The Anonymous Critic.