The "Meet the Parents" Franchise

[StevePulaski]

Meet the Parents (2000)
Directed by: Jay Roach

Ben Stiller's Greg Focker sits down to lead his fiancee's family in payer in Meet the Parents.

Rating: ★★

Is there anything more nerve-wracking or heart-racing than meeting your significant others parents for the first time? This seems to be more of an obvious fear for the male in a heterosexual relationship than it is a woman's; the desire to make a presence that's simultaneously meaningful and respectful, but not too brazen, is a tricky dance to accomplish and the anxiety that accompanies such an event is usually too much to even begin to adequately articulate. One winds up overthinking everything to the point of either saying something they didn't mean to say or feeling like they have just made a complete fool of themselves in front of the person they love and her own family.

I suppose I can rest easy knowing that writers Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg have made a "worst case scenario" film about the subject, which effectively makes almost any evening spent with the parents of your significant other seem desirable and successful in comparison. Jay Roach's Meet the Parents is the kind of film that takes those fears and persistent worries and etches them into a film that ups the stakes so high that, after a while, it becomes difficult to laugh given how far the film has fallen from its own sense of realism. it takes a realistic and common fear and repeatedly throws so many incredulous situations towards it, turning it into a farce, that, by the end, it's not only hard to take the film seriously, but the characters as well.

We meet Gregory Focker (Ben Stiller), a male nurse who has been in a relationship with Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo) and is working to execute the perfect marriage proposal as soon as he gets off work. Just before he's about to pop the big question, Pam gets a call from her sister that she is now engaged, right after her fiancee asked Pam's father for her hand in marriage. While Pam claims it isn't necessary to do such a thing, it's a sweet, traditionalist gesture. As a result, Greg keeps his plans under the wraps and agrees to go to Pam's family's home in Long Island for the wedding.

Upon losing his luggage on the flight, Greg meets Pam's father Jack (Robert De Niro) and her mother Dina (Blythe Danner). Right off the bat, Jack is cold and offputting to Greg, emphasizing Greg's less-than-positive view of cats and his own career choice of being a nurse. This sets the tone for what will be the next few days - awkward, uncomfortable interactions that will revolve around Greg trying to please Jack, but, in the end, only resulting in frustration or anger on Jack's behalf. Things only get intensified when Greg winds up meeting Kevin (Owen Wilson), Pam's ex-fiancee who is helping organize her sister's wedding.

Meet the Parents has a committed cast of greats, starting with De Niro and Stiller, the two obvious, and even making strong uses of Polo and Danner, who transcend supporting roles and have a few of their own moments to shine. Consider Polo's character consistently trying to tow the lines of loyalty to her father and express her love for Greg, while Danner's character's cheeriness is usually diminished by the sternness of her husband. The glaring effects of the male characters on the female characters is an interesting dichotomy, especially seeing as the female characters are the whole reason everyone is brought together.

Other than that, and some surface relatability based on the basic premise of the film rather than the actual details, Meet the Parents is one long sitcom. The film houses a barrage of overblown sight gags, caricatures instead of characters, and a case of "maximum antics, minimum laughter," where the writers continue to dogpile awkward scenarios on the characters while forgetting to humanize the characters in order for the gags to actually work. This is less a film and more an assortment of asinine events that work to beat the audience down with slapstick and a great deal of comedy that is almost too desperate to be funny.

Meet the Parents will get empathy points from many, but the points it receives from its obvious brand of comedy should be relatively minimal. There's an appalling lack of human interest here outside of the film's concept, which is a big problem when you have a film that has the ability to resonate very deeply with people. Many of us have been in Greg's situation and many of us have found ourselves to be the worst enemy at times, but these elements, while substantial and ripe for exploration, can even be taken in a haphazard manner.

Starring: Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, Robert De Niro, Blythe Danner, and Owen Wilson. Directed by: Jay Roach.

[StevePulaski]

Meet the Fockers (2004)
Directed by: Jay Roach

Rating: ★½

The only thing worse than an unnecessary sequel is a sequel that can't figure out anything new or invigorating to do with its material, so it resorts to recycling the same structure, humor, and plot-points from the original film. Meet the Fockers is a uniformly lazy picture, yet only slightly placing itself a few notches below its grossly overrated predecessor. The film all but affirms the purpose of its franchise's existence is to subject Ben Stiller to one lifeless comedic setpiece after another, to make Robert De Niro a continuously intolerable character, and to take a cast that practically oozes personality and make them a boring assortment of caricatures.

It all starts with the rehashed plot; this time, instead of Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) meeting his fiancee Pam Byrnes' (Teri Polo) parents, and enduring the awkwardness and uncertainty that follows, Pam, her notoriously strict father Jack (Robert De Niro), and her mother Dina (Blythe Danner) will travel from Oyster Bay, New York to Long Island by RV to meet Greg's mother and father. Also going along for the ride is Little Jack, Jack's one-year-old nephew who he simultaneously cuddles and teaches how to be a grown up despite still being an infant.

One of the first shocks to Greg's family is, despite Greg being so controlling and tightly wound, Greg's parents, Bernie and Roz (Dustin Hoffman and Barbara Streisand), are so liberal and relaxed. The two welcome Jack and Dina with open arms, despite an evident behavioral shock taking place during casual conversation, as Bernie and Roz love to be open and free to discuss sex with their friends. Real drama, however, sets in when Greg reconnects with his old housekeeper Isabel Villalobos (Alanna Ubach), whom he slept with at a young age. Isabel now has a son that looks mysteriously like Greg and was birthed in a window similar to when him and Isabel slept together. As one can imagine, this causes immense discomfort between Greg and Pam, all while Jack is still trying to get Greg to fess up, as he believes he still isn't nearly as honest as he claims to be.

The overblown nature of these films is what kills their vibe; their unsubtle humor works against every joke in a way that discredits the situation and the subsequent events. These films would work much better had to been conducted on a realistic scale, but when you have a cat who can flush a toilet, a baby who hears over three dozen simple words a day, yet his first word is a polysyllabic profanity, Greg's parents are such mind-numbing dolts who have no idea how to treat guests, and their is the possibility of an illegitimate son nobody spoke about, then the film becomes so far off course in its narrative it might as well be science-fiction.

Furthermore, Meet the Fockers, as you'd expect, cops out with over a dozen jokes about Greg's birthname of "Gaylord Focker." This shows nothing else besides lazy writing on part of Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg, as they continue to cherrypick elements from the previous film. However, if Meet the Parents was good for anything, aside from being a sitcom display of humor, it was also slightly original and tapped into the nervewracking idea most men have when it comes to meeting their girlfriend or fiancee's parents. It reached out and explored that often unexplored area of anxiety and nervousness that stems from what should theoretically be a very positive and respectful time for both parties. However, due to the desire to not only impress, but wow, there is a discernible level of anxiety that takes over and frequently makes the first couple interactions so awkward and unsettling.

Yet Meet the Parents, as stated, what a sitcom display of such events; a bogus, redundant collection of overblown scenarios that Meet the Fockers replicates in an even more mediocre fashion. Talent that has proven themselves worthy of high recognition succumbs to the repetitive nature of situational antics, most of which fall flat on their face and provide nothing else for the characters to do besides frantically run around and scream bloody murder at every turn. Meet the Fockers is a monotonous exercise that, in turn, makes its mediocre predecessor appear worth of praise.

Starring: Ben Stiller, Teri Polo, Robert De Niro, Blythe Danner, Dustin Hoffman, Barbara Streisand, and Alanna Ubach. Directed by: Jay Roach.