Os Meyerowitz: Família Não Se Escolhe

Plant an academic-artistic Jewish-American family in contemporary Manhattan, and you have neurotic conversation, bruising relationships, and repentance all learned from Woody Allen if not for real. Even more than Woody's endearing situations, this one is bloodier but more forgiving.

Noah Baumbach's Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected),a Netflix original, is touchingly funny about two Meyerowitz sons, musician Danny (Adam Sandler) and financier Matt (Ben Stiller) celebrating their mediocre-sculptor-professor father, Harold (Dustin Hoffman), and their constant jockeying for position with him and themselves. It's not a hilarious comedy, but the nerdy-New-Yorker motif shows it is still satisfyingly amusing.

Baumbach perfectly tunes us to Danny's alienation from Dad and Matt's clueless realization of his role as favored one. Danny's opening sequence trying to find a parking spot in the East Village is an emblem of his consistent failures and the disintegration of the fractured family holding on to hopes about the deed for Dad's apartment.

Most of what happens is off-center from the truth of things, as is probably true of most families whose perception of each other is skewered by family culture and parental politics. The dialogue is both banal and profound, just the way we all live except that few of us are Jewish or live in Manhattan, two invaluable elements that provide subtle hilarity. When feelings are exposed, the dialogue turns almost Eugene O'Neill-like.

Most touching about these stories, which are chapters partly devoted to the three males, are almost seamless revelations about the family and their unspooling in a leisurely but sometimes devastating way. About the daily dialogue, Baumbach can't be bested, maybe except for Allen in his prime and Baumbach's girlfriend, Greta Gerwig, whose wispiness is gone from Baumbach here, but all the better for this urbane grit: "Brian and James, who you've met..." Matthew "Very charming interracial, homosexual couple, and smart about the work. They were familiar with Gilded Halfwing [Harold's prized but ignored sculpture]." Harold

Keeping things low key from beginning to end, the story presents a realistic family dynamic that's subtly dysfunctional. The ridiculously star studded cast all offer up believable, understated performances, and it's easy to find the characters relatable. The film stays so true to life that it can occasionally get a bit dull. I'd say for the most part it hovers just above being boring, but I could see someone who's used to more fast paced fare consider it's dry delivery to be a tedious slog.

A treat of a movie! Packs an emotional punch, laugh out loud funny at times but sad at every turn, a movie that strikes a realistic tone in the presentation of family conflicts. Reminded me a lot of Little Miss Sunshine. The ensemble cast was fantastic - Adam Sandler a revelation. Presented as a series of connected short stories focusing on different members of the family I was left very involved and wanting more. It's not often I finish a movie wishing they'd given us another half hour.

One reviewer said it was Manhattan and a Jewish family, that covered it. My family is not from Manhattan nor is it Jewish and I saw us in this movie. It's a mirror of families everywhere and every color in every place. We all have "that" father/grandfather, "that" mother/stepmother, "that" sibling. Or cousin or uncle or or or. We all know that family and have lived with someone like them. It was nice to see that We are NOT alone!!

I am surprised by other reviews of this film, but I think understanding this work depends wholly on whether you have ever lived with or known intimately a narcissist. It may not be pretty to watch, but it's not pretty to live either. And this movie nails it. It may be a small percentage of the population that can truly understand the subtleties of this movie and appreciate them. The skill it took to capture the complexity of these characters and to make it believable is remarkable. Baumbach paints in detail the devastated landscape of a narcissist's world. Hoffman's character displays perfectly how a narcissist's personality cannot and will not make room for anyone else's experience or emotions, especially his children's. Every conversation eventually returns to him: his needs, his opinions, his preferences, his ego, his career, his art, his place in the world. People have remarked that Hoffman is tedious and exhausting in this film. Yes. Because that is exactly the point. And Adam Sandler, Ben Stiller and Elizabeth Marvel are brilliant as the relational afterthoughts of his all-consuming ego. I would recommend this film to anyone. Not because you'll feel great after watching it but because it dares to tackle a deeply complex human subject and succeeds. And isn't that the point of art anyway?