The Meyerowitz Stories

“Mau­reen, where’s the gourmet hum­mus?” asks Dustin Hoff­man as bushy-beard­ed artist/​patriarch, Howard Meyerowitz, as he stares into his fridge with a look of con­cern. The Meyerowitz Sto­ries is Noah Baumbach’s juici­est com­e­dy since 2012’s Gre­ta Ger­wig-star­ring hit, Frances Ha. It is pep­pered with wit­ty lines and spiced with phys­i­cal antics. Emma Thomp­son is Howard’s fourth wife, Mau­reen, a per­ma­nent­ly soz­zled New York­er who, at one point, rolls her car ever so gen­tly into a tree.

As a fast-paced talkie pre­oc­cu­pied with the eccen­tric­i­ties passed down through gen­er­a­tions and the dam­ages wrought by fam­i­ly life, the film evokes Han­nah and Her Sis­ters-era Woody Allen. Deep­er down, there are the­mat­ic par­al­lels to Wes Anderson’s The Roy­al Tenen­baums, with Dustin Hoff­man equalling Gene Hackman’s per­for­mance as a ram­shackle but charis­mat­ic father fig­ure who boasts refined skill for press­ing his children’s but­tons. As Dan­ny (Adam San­dler) says: ​“I wish dad had done one big unfor­giv­able thing that I could be angry about, but instead it’s tiny things every day: drip, drip, drip.”

‘Dan­ny’ is the first of the film’s five chap­ters, and is imme­di­ate­ly intrigu­ing by virtue of hav­ing San­dler adopt­ing his lit­tle-seen sen­si­tive actor mode. Giv­en the slew of lam­en­ta­ble come­dies that have become syn­ony­mous with his name, it is strange­ly mov­ing to see him (unfor­get­table in Paul Thomas Anderson’s Punch-Drunk Love) ten­der­ly singing duets with his 18-year-old daugh­ter, Eliza (Grace Van Patten).

The film’s plot is a daisy-chain of com­ic vignettes, craft­ed to smug­gle in back sto­ries and exam­ine the emo­tion­al bag­gage that ham­pers these rela­tions. Dan­ny and owl-spec­ta­cled sis­ter, Jean (Eliz­a­beth Mar­vel), are the fam­i­ly losers, while their half-broth­er Matt (Ben Stiller), a per­son­al-wealth advi­sor, is pride of the clan. Matt still has dad­dy issues, how­ev­er, as Howard uses their time togeth­er to gripe and grum­ble rather than to dis­pense longed-for affirmation.

Howard’s issues stem from an ear­ly-career burst of recog­ni­tion for his art, fol­lowed by decades of grow­ing obscu­ri­ty. Taunt­ing him is the suc­cess of a man who was once an equal. Indeed, one fab­u­lous set piece takes place at the pri­vate launch of this rival artist’s new col­lec­tion at MOMA. A celebri­ty, cameo­ing as her­self, polite­ly acknowl­edges Howard’s exis­tence, and he pro­ceeds to repeat this com­i­cal­ly min­i­mal tid­bit as an anec­dote, wear­ing it as a badge of hon­our through­out the film.

Hoff­man is the Atlas, whose act­ing mus­cles shoul­der the film’s charm­ing tone. Howard is a crotch­ety prob­lem cre­ator, but baked into Hoffman’s phys­i­cal iden­ti­ty – his small size, lop­sided grin, and (in this film) mighty beard – there is soul to his brit­tle brand of human­i­ty. Ben Stiller is on top form, deliv­er­ing a more earnest and con­tained per­for­mance than the tight­ly-wound neu­rotics he has played in pre­vi­ous Baum­bach col­lab­o­ra­tions (Green­berg, While We’re Young).

Although this is a male-weight­ed movie, there are no dud char­ac­ters, and a democ­ra­cy of humour is the cur­ren­cy. The relent­less pace of the dia­logue is at times exhaust­ing, and the tone nev­er real­ly varies, yet this is for­giv­en when, hours after view­ing, you find your­self grin­ning into the ether, remem­ber­ing stand­out hoots from the cor­nu­copia of Meyerowitz tales.