Written and Directed by Noah Baumbach
**** (four stars)
RATED R
I had forgotten this film had even existed.
Now, for t hose of you who do not know me in the real world, I can feel free to share with yo that I have harbored a long standing resistance to essentially all things streaming..or at least, regarding the means in which to discover new movies. It is all due to the nature of the beast that is the movie business and for quite some time now, streaming has proven to be the way of the future, especially as people have essentially created their own "move theaters" within their own homes with giant flat screen TVs, excellent sound systems...and the ability to pause when ever one wished! In some ways, and unless the movie in question was designed to be a big screen blockbuster type of film, the movies really did not have much of a way to compete. And so, look at the movies that have dominated our theater screens--and increasingly so over these past ten years at least.
I will save you the trouble of hearing my diatribes again concerning the dangerous place our movies now reside within with regards to what is being made, being released and so on. That said, this is indeed one reason why I have been so resistant to streaming services. For you see, for me, movies are for movie theaters. Of course, I watch movies at home just like all of you. But for me, there is nothing like the experience of seeing a movie, regardless of style or genre, within the darkness of a theater and in the company of strangers, all of us having an experience together. I just did not like the idea of major motion pictures being premiered upon streaming services or more often, these days, having tiny token theatrical releases before being exclusively exhibited on the small screen. Even worse, is the fact that even our most established, celebrated filmmakers are now compelled to turn to the streaming services in order to get new films made...that is, if their films do not fall under the banners of tent-poles and franchises.
Now, we live in the time of a global pandemic and everything has changed. With our movie theaters all closed and spending the last several months indoors due to social distancing and quarantining, I took the plunge and decided to take advantage of few free month-long previews of some streaming services, and I have since allowed myself to keep subscriptions to two of those services.
As for Writer/Director Noah Baumbach, the last feature films of his I ever saw in the movie theater were both five years ago, the outstanding generation gap social satire "While We're Young" (2015) and the shallow, insufferable tripe of "Mistress America" (2015). Since that time, Baumbach has received voluminous attention over his Oscar nominated and Netflix streaming film "Marriage Story" (2019), which I gave high marks in a recent post. So, while still quarantining, I was scrolling around Netflix again, when I fell upon the film in which I am just about ready to review for you and I stopped cold as I had possessed a vague memory of this film being barely released theatrically (and not at all within my own city) before finding its permanent home upon the small screen.
Truth be told, and while I will always prefer the movie theater experience, the quality of a film is all due to the art and artistry contained within the craft of cinematic storytelling--meaning a terrific film will continue to be terrific on screens large or small. Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)" is a terrific film, his finest since "The Squid And The Whale" (2005) and as far as I am concerned, his finest film to date overall. Baumbach has been a filmmaker who work swings quite wildly for me. There have been some that I have loved, others I have hated, rarely any one of them finding a middle-ground with me. With this film, Baumbach functions at his most honest, transparent, open, fluid and without self-congratulatory filters or ironic distance that hinders, what I feel to be are his worst creative tendencies. And in doing so, he has delivered a work whose bitter laughs and fragile pathos are firmly convincing, quietly resonant and richly, so deservedly earned.
"The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)" stars Dustin Hoffman as Harold Meyerowitz, an almost famous sculptor and retired art historian/professor at Bard College who lives his mercurial existence in his New York home with his alcoholic fourth wife Maureen (Emma Thompson) and a bottomless pit of barely simmering resentment at the grand notoriety and success that has eluded him, yet has shown upon his the likes of his contemporary/rival L.J. Shapiro (Judd Hirsch).
As the film opens, Harold's son Danny Meyerowitz (Adam Sandler), a failed musician, unemployed and divorced, has moved into the home to try and regain his footing and piece himself together, especially as he is about to become an empty nester himself as his daughter Eliza (Grace Van Patten) is set to begin college at Bard as a film student. Danny remains fairly close to his socially awkward younger sister Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), yet both share a distanced relationship with their half-brother Matthew (Ben Stiller), a successful financial advisor based in Los Angeles.
All three Meyerowitz children have grown up to becoming miserable adults, all under the thumb of their Father, and all harboring resentments towards him yet are each unable to relinquish themselves from his massive influence, as well as the competition, and still bristling resentments, he has inspired between them.
Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)" takes the cliches of the dysfunctional family film and fully circumvents them just through its unforced presentation, emotional honesty and so superbly through the gifts of crisp, clear literary writing. In some ways, the film feels as if it could be a close, equally melancholy cousin to Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tennenbaums" (2001), yet minus the lavishy ornamental aesthetics.
Baumbach's vision, while starring the same collective of upper crust styled, White privileged characters as his standard, is indeed much more street level, conceptually and visually, where the familial wounds and individual existential pains are as real as they are raw. While the film is indeed broken into sections, much like short stories (and as evidenced within the film's title), I particularly loved the technique used several times within the film where points and scenes of conflict are abruptly ended, sometimes edited within mid sentence, and then moves onto the next scene. This, to me, suggested that whatever turbulence we had been witness to is the very turbulence that is on-going within the lives of the characters, surfacing, subsiding and re-surfacing evermore, never providing any sense of movement or release. It is essentially the same sad song played over and over again, from childhood to middle age.
Harold Meyerowitz, in his lack of control over the level of fame and therefore, power, within his public persona, has consistently wielded his sense of control over the lives of his children. He loves them yet through his indifference to their feelings at the expense of constantly centering upon his own, he has become an abusive figure, where Danny and Matthew are often in the position of jumping and dancing to his every conceivable whim, often being forced to literally chase him around New York, each with the hopes of attaining a sense of approval they will never fully obtain, yet unbeknownst to each other as half-sibling rivalry bubbles intensely under the polite surface.
For Danny, who carried the natural talent and Matthew, who has made the money, their conflict is forever stoked by Harold, who constantly sings Matthew's praises to Danny yet lords Danny's artistic talents over Matthew's more pragmatic head, making each of them feel insignificant in their Father's eyes by comparison. This very aspect of the family dynamic is symbolized by a sculpture Harold created, the origin of which is contained in a family story which may or may not be as remembered, therefore creating more familial, psychological unrest between the half-brothers.
As for Jean, she has withdrawn altogether as there just does not seem to be any space for her.
And yet, "The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)" is by no means a dirge as Baumbach has indeed loaded his film with quite a lot of sharp, prickly humor which succeeds so greatly as it is so knowing about how family dynamics work when we all veer in between love and fury.
A sequence during which Matthew agrees to meet Harold for lunch in particular is a perfectly knowing blending of what would be hysterical, as long as it is not happening to you. A late film sequence of rare bonding between the half-brothers is riotous. Eliza's student films are a glorious piece of satire upending the self-important and earnestly delivered artistic attitudes of college students figuring out their individualist worldviews. And even with moments like those and more, Noah Baumbach's directorial hand has never been as sure handed as it is here, as he balances the comedy, the truth of his characters and their genuine sorrow so deftly that he has effectively captured the rhythms of life in this slice of life film.
All of the film's performances are standouts. As Harold, Dustin Hoffman is as strongly meticulous as ever, giving us the full prickly history of a figure who is not even on screen for the entire film, yet whose presence remains rightfully paramount throughout. Ben Stiller, in his third outing with Baumbach, reaches some acting peaks, particularly within a scene set at a Bard faculty art event, where he displays an emotional nakedness I have not seen him elicit before. Elizabeth Marvel also finds some really wonderful moments in a character that could have easily existed as the stereotypical nod to self-conscious independent film quirkiness. On the contrary, she is allowed, in a few scenes, including one in which she delivers a short story within the story of a monologue that showcases how despite her oddities, she just might be the most adjusted sibling of the three.
Dear readers, Adam Sandler is a revelation.
As the late, great Roger Ebert once expressed so perfectly, I also love Adam Sandler when he is not appearing in Adam Sandler movies. He is a very skilled dramatic actor and with his role as Danny, Sandler gives the most relaxed, unfiltered, natural performance of his entire career. In many respects, the character and his arc is not too far removed from the types of characters he has played before, from his sense of arrested development, to his stunted emotional growth which is unleashed in occasional tirades. Yet, this time, all of those tics are based within the history of a very real adult man, terribly parented as a child, emotionally damaged, depressed and still a great Father to his own daughter, with whom he has cultivated a rich, warm relationship, which he fears he will lose as she leaves for college and stretches her own wings.
A short sequence in which a quietly teary Danny shares a phone call with Eliza not long after she has arrived at Bard is just a jewel of a scene, as is a tender flirtation between Danny and his childhood friend Loretta (Rebecca Miller) at a MoMA event. The paths of his relationships with Matthew and Harold and how they each contribute to his dilapidated ennui over the course of the film, and to that end, the course of his life, all inter-connect into a multi-layered portrait of a life existing but not living and unlike Sandler's volcanic, go for broke performance in The Safdie Brothers' "Uncut Gems" (2019), what he achieves here is a work of subtlety and grace. There are no affects. No self-conscious distance. It is a legitimately vulnerable performance that feels lived in and deeply true in intent and soul.
Noah Baumbach's "The Meyerowitz Stories (New And Selected)" is a poetic triumph, a film that understands what it means to be within an unorthodox family while also beautifully presenting what it just means to be within a family. Smart, illuminating, entertaining and enlightening, it is precisely the film I always knew Baumbach had inside of him , if only he would allow himself to get out of his own way to realize it. How glad I am that he did.
And how glad I am that the streaming service reminded me that it was there just waiting for me to discover it.
No comments:
Post a Comment