Meet the Parents

MEET THE PARENTS is a clever, dry, and extremely funny film. The lead, Greg Glienna, is an amazingly subtle and truthful comic actor, and with one gag (a very quiet one) he gets as long a laugh as I have ever heard in a movie theater. I've yet to meet anyone who has seen MEET THE PARENTS who has not become a missionary for it.

Extremely happy that I finally got to see this. The humor in this film is, amongst other things, unbelievably funny, twisted, dark, and is the ultimate 'worst case' scenario. The film starts out with some cringe inducing awkwardness on par with some of the interactions on BBC's The Office, which quickly unfolds as coincidence after coincidence turn greg's in-laws to be, and eventually his fiancee herself, against him. Superficially the Hollywoodized remake preserves the basic plot idea, but gone is the relatability- Glienna as Greg is an everyman, and he not once tries to deceive, gone is the bite, Fay's final scene would be unheard of in a major Hollywood comedy, I believe, and most importantly gone is the character. This is a very unique film that I would put on par with Paul Bartel's Eating Raoul or Scenes From The Class Struggle in Beverly Hills. Also Emo Philips rules. Highly recommended.

With all the current hype over Meet the Fockers, I am compelled to remember how funny the original Meet the Parents was when I was fortunate enough to see it in Chicago in the mid 90's. I have never heard an audience laugh like that in my life! It still remains one of the best comedies I have ever seen. I understand that the filmmakers are not allowed to show the original and it's too bad. This film, although pretty low budget, had a believability and subtleness that the big budget remake didn't have. I hope after Universal pictures makes every last dollar out of the MTP franchise that they will allow this comedy gem to be released.