|
MEET THE PARENTS Send This Review to a Friend
The older Robert De Niro gets, the better he is as a character actor. He is in top form in the exuberantly funny "Meet the Parents" as an over-protective father, Jack Byrnes, who can make life thoroughly miserable for any suitor with the audacity to think he is good enough for Jack's daughter Pam. When daddy's girl brings Greg Focker, her intended, home to meet mom and dad, he is in for a disastrous time, much to his consternation and our entertainment. The movie is delightful most of the way, although conventionally it must drop the emphasis on comedy long enough to reach its inevitable romantic resolution.
This is mainly De Niro's picture as he operates like a one-man CIA and FBI in going to such extremes as putting Greg through a lie detector test. But Ben Stiller as the persecuted, disaster-prone Greg gives De Niro competition in the laugh department as he stumbles into one mishap after another in his aim to please. Teri Polo is both attractive and sympathetic as Pam, and Blythe Danner deftly plays Dina Byrnes, Jack's compliant wife, who has patiently suffered the sternness of her husband. She finally has a scene in which she asserts herself, hardly an easy task in that household.
The film should connect with anyone who has ever been in the position of having to get the parental stamp of approval on a relationship, as well as on any parent who has had to give one. It conjures up memories of the plethora of in-law jokes about stereotypes who nevertheless might be considered pussycats in comparison with the hard-headed character inhabited by De Niro.
Screenwriters Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg have peppered the comedy with many amusing confrontations, including hilarity in dealing with an airline, and have neatly taken the idea to its limits. They get much mileage out of De Niro mocking and slightly mispronouncing Greg's last name, Focker, although there's a bit too much of that. Director Jay Roach obviously knew what would work, whether in the slapstick or the family talk, and executed the set-ups with just the right nuances and proper reliance on the abilities of the stars as well as of the large supporting cast. A Universal Pictures release.
|