When a movie still haunts me, days after watching it, I know it must have been bloody good and this was the case with The Meyerowitz stories. Dustin Hofman is one of my all time favorite actors but I wasn't prepared for him to play such an obnoxious, selfish character. For a great part of the movie, he is lying in a hospital bed having some life threatening condition. He comes out of it and STILL is the same obnoxious selfish man he was before...LOL. Although he doesn't change, his children do.
The story is told through these children, all grown up and with their own emotional baggage. The Adam Sandler part is touching, albeit a bit long in comparison to the other. In fact, the part that's about the sister is just a disgrace and doesn't learn us anything about her - it's merely a reason for the brothers to bond.
Now Ben Stiller is really good in this film, he plays the successful brother. The patience he has for his father is amazing and their lunch date is just so relatable and bittersweet. It made my toes crawl because I could just feel his inner struggle between staying polite and patient and just losing it completely. His character changes the most in this film and I really liked how constrained and calm he acted. It seemed he, as the youngest, becomes actually the leader of the siblings, the one they look up to. And no longer because he's obviously their father's favorite, but because during this ordeal he really proves himself as the smarter, more responsible one. Like fi. when he learns his brother and sister to take notes by the hospital bed.
I liked the relation between Adam Sandler and his on-screen daughter at first. But when she's off to college, she turns from this down-to-earth girl into a exhibitionist movie maker, making egocentrically porn and selling it as art. Maybe she really WAS the one and only true successor of her grandfather, and she may just turn unto the same unlikeable person he is. Just thinking about that as I write, I might have missed that point when I watched the film...
Greatest disappointment was the role of Emma Thompson as Meyerowitz's 4th (?) wife. Her character was also very unlikeable - even in the scenes with 'son' Ben Stiller. I couldn't imagine her being a wife or a mother. She was just wacky and weird and her body language reminded me a lot of the character she played in the Harry Potter movies.
In all, the female roles are just bad and not as nearly as important as the male roles, but I guess this is due to the fact that Harold Meyerowitz's character is so dominant, all females are automatically put in the background. The sons are divorced or in the middle of it, and their ex-wives are only mentioned briefly and surely never seen.
Nevertheless, I couldn't stop watching. The dialogues are so important in this film, they are quick and witty (like the old movies with Cary Grant). Scenes are long and filmed from the same camera point, so this is very different from other movies where everything must go fast and flashy. For some this might be boring, but I liked the slow speed and the time that is spent on the scenes.
Highly recommended.
The story is told through these children, all grown up and with their own emotional baggage. The Adam Sandler part is touching, albeit a bit long in comparison to the other. In fact, the part that's about the sister is just a disgrace and doesn't learn us anything about her - it's merely a reason for the brothers to bond.
Now Ben Stiller is really good in this film, he plays the successful brother. The patience he has for his father is amazing and their lunch date is just so relatable and bittersweet. It made my toes crawl because I could just feel his inner struggle between staying polite and patient and just losing it completely. His character changes the most in this film and I really liked how constrained and calm he acted. It seemed he, as the youngest, becomes actually the leader of the siblings, the one they look up to. And no longer because he's obviously their father's favorite, but because during this ordeal he really proves himself as the smarter, more responsible one. Like fi. when he learns his brother and sister to take notes by the hospital bed.
I liked the relation between Adam Sandler and his on-screen daughter at first. But when she's off to college, she turns from this down-to-earth girl into a exhibitionist movie maker, making egocentrically porn and selling it as art. Maybe she really WAS the one and only true successor of her grandfather, and she may just turn unto the same unlikeable person he is. Just thinking about that as I write, I might have missed that point when I watched the film...
Greatest disappointment was the role of Emma Thompson as Meyerowitz's 4th (?) wife. Her character was also very unlikeable - even in the scenes with 'son' Ben Stiller. I couldn't imagine her being a wife or a mother. She was just wacky and weird and her body language reminded me a lot of the character she played in the Harry Potter movies.
In all, the female roles are just bad and not as nearly as important as the male roles, but I guess this is due to the fact that Harold Meyerowitz's character is so dominant, all females are automatically put in the background. The sons are divorced or in the middle of it, and their ex-wives are only mentioned briefly and surely never seen.
Nevertheless, I couldn't stop watching. The dialogues are so important in this film, they are quick and witty (like the old movies with Cary Grant). Scenes are long and filmed from the same camera point, so this is very different from other movies where everything must go fast and flashy. For some this might be boring, but I liked the slow speed and the time that is spent on the scenes.
Highly recommended.