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Do you ever feel that maybe Huxley and Etheridge had the right idea – that the trad family thing is simply too difficult to manage in a world beleaguered by two-party political oligarchies, ZZP (zanaxzoloftpaxil), Eminem, and $20,000+ Hyundais? That the whole dating/mating circus is the main reason we can’t expand our collective consciousness and, as Arthur C. Clarke put it, finally get beyond “childhood’s end” to find our place in the universe? If that nagging suspicion has you checking the yellow pages now and then for reproductive alternatives like cloning labs and invitro farms, this outrageous comedy from Austin Powers director Jay Roach might provide a little relief. Then again, it might validate all your fears and send you retreating to the nearest monastery (there are a couple dozen, to suit either Eastern or Western sensibilities, within a day’s drive of here; I’ve checked). It’s hard to say.
Ben Stiller plays Greg Focker, a Chicago nurse who you’d think already suffers enough thanks to the continual PG-13 corruption of his surname. He’d like to marry longtime girlfriend Debbie (screen newcomer Nicole Dehuff), but her family tradition requires he secure permission from her insular, over-protective, ex-CIA father Jack (Robert DeNiro) first. A weekend trip to the tranquil Long Island clan homestead, occasioned by her sister’s wedding, seems to provide such an opportunity, but everything that could possibly go wrong in a manner that will make Greg look like an utter menace to the ‘Murrican Way of Life, does. Plumbing, marijuana, luggage, religion, cheap champagne, zoology, fire, electronic surveillance, gravity, and Own Wilson (playing Debbie’s former suitor, an affluent Wall Streeter who’s part Paul Bunyan and part Billy Graham) conspire to interfere, his playful nature providing no defense against people on whom “humor is entirely wasted.” Things finally reach a point where everybody descends on Greg like a bunch of brain-eating zombies. Therein hangs your prerequisite story conflict: will our hero prevail in the face of daunting odds and inaugurate his own familial absurdities?
A remake of a little-seen 1992 film by the same title, Meet the Parents is certainly entertaining if you’ve had your fill of subtlety for the week. As in DeNiro’s last comedic outing (Analyze This), Stiller’s There’s Something About Mary, and Roach’s previous groovy work, the gags come fast and apocalyptic. That’s okay in this setting, because broad strokes are needed to parry the discomfort inspired by seeing poor Greg trying so hard to please against relentless odds. And while too many Focker jokes soon wear thin (the script was co-written by Meet the Deedles scribe James Herzfield – what’ll he do next, Meet the Deedles’ Parents? – and John Hamburg, who wrote and directed the neat little obscurity Safe Men), Bobby and Ben put on a real clinic of comic timing and chemistry.
I probably would have enjoyed it even more had it not been for the girl who sat down in the theater seat next to me and checked her wireless email every five minutes. To her, here’s a thought: if you’re no more interested in that guy you were with than to keep scanning your inbox for a better offer, you need to find another date. Her glowing Verizon was almost as distracting as seeing kvetching pixie-haired comic Emo Philips listed in the opening credits as executive producer. B
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