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Meet the Parents shows you how hilariously disastrous one weekend can be, especially if it's an occasion for a first-time meeting between a
suitor desperately trying to win the approval of his girlfriend's parents—and her father who doggedly believes no suitor is good enough for his daughter.
Ben Stiller plays the role of the suitor named Gaylord "Greg" Focker, a male nurse whose name alone is enough to launch a thousand jokes, while Robert de Niro plays the devoted though paranoid father, Jack Brynes. Pam Brynes (Teri Polo) brings focker home to meet her folks at her sister's wedding, and mishap is piled upom mishap as father, an ex-CIA agent, tries every trick in the book to prove Focker unworthy.
The plot of this romantic comedy is nothing new but with the magnificent acting of de Niro and
Stiller—delivering their crisp lines with an uncanny sense of timing—you won't realize that you've seen its like hundreds of times before. Add to the superb performances
of Teri Polo (as Pam Brynes, Jack's radiant daughter) Blythe Danner (as the charming, peacemaking mom Dina), and your movie ticket practically gets you a free weekend as a
guest at the Brynes household to partake of the comic mayhem. Meet the Parents proves that even the most trite of stories can be saved by a witty script and a
handful of perfectly cast actors who effortlessly glide through their roles.
This is not to say that Meet the Parents
is flawless. For one, the comic possibility of the name "Focker" is rather overworked. Then, it uses a bit of slapstick, plus a (literal) splashing of toilet humor (as when the septic tank overflows and turns the lawn into a veritable lake of human refuse). But by and large it's an engaging, entertaining story that's funny primarily because it touches familiar feelings. But make no mistake about it: this remake of a 1993 movie is not that wholesome or harmless. It could be quite confusing to your minds, since it portrays pre-marital sex as an unquestioned fact of life, and yet lays emphasis on values such as honesty, marital stability and commitment.
(Date reviewed: January 8, 2001)
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