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Review by Susan Granger
3½ stars out of 4
Great humor comes from simple, universal truths, and there
are few rites-of-passage as unnerving as meeting your prospective
spouse's family. That's the dreaded dilemma facing Greg Focker (Ben
Stiller) who realizes that it's important to get her father's
permission before he proposes to his girlfriend Pam (Teri Polo). A
trip from Chicago to New York for her younger sister's wedding seems
like the right occasion but things go from bad (lost luggage) to worse
when her father Jack (Robert De Niro) turns out to be an eccentric,
dogmatic, humorless ex-CIA agent, specializing in psychological
profiling, who spent 19 months in a Vietnamese prison camp. "Under my
roof, it's my way or the Long Island Expressway," dictates Jack,
regarding 21st century sexual mores. Feeling like an outsider about to
abscond with their first-born, Greg manages to do everything wrong, as
the cat disappears, septic tank overflows, sump pump explodes and
wedding altar catches fire. And his discomfort is augmented by Greg's
being a male nurse in a houseful of doctors. There's a hilarious scene
in which Greg muses about the meaning of "Puff the Magic Dragon,"
impelling Pam's mother (Blythe Danner) to placate Jack later, noting,
"Maybe he uses marijuana for medicinal purposes." Ben Stiller's
perfect as the hapless, anxiety-ridden interloper, while Robert De
Niro uses his serious, dramatic intensity to be an intimidating
adversary - much to the credit of director Jay Roach ("Austin
Powers"). Based on a story by Greg Glienna & Mary Ruth Clarke, the
wry, deftly frantic screenplay by Jim Herzfeld & John Hamburg evokes
multi-generational empathy before running out of steam. On the Granger
Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "Meet the Parents" is an uproarious,
entertaining 8. It's laugh-out-loud funny.
Copyright © 2000 Susan Granger
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