The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)

Directed by Noah Baumbach, The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) follows several estranged family members, including Adam Sandler’s Danny, Ben Stiller’s Matthew, and Elizabeth Marvel’s Jean, as they reunite after their patriarch (Dustin Hoffman’s Harold) falls ill. Filmmaker Baumbach, armed with his own screenplay, does an effective job of immediately luring the viewer into the progressively hit-and-miss proceedings, as The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) kicks off with a terrific opening sequence in which Sandler’s Danny attempts to find a parking spot within a very crowded New York City neighborhood – with the picture, beyond that point, seguing into a slapdash narrative that grows less and less involving as it unfolds. The arms-length feel is enhanced (and perpetuated) by an overly talky screenplay that’s more concerned with wringing (non-existent) laughs than developing the characters and cultivating a compelling, watchable atmosphere (ie most of this stuff isn’t, by and large, actually funny), and although Baumbach has admittedly sprinkled the film with a small handful of genuinely engrossing episodes (including, and especially, a fantastic scene wherein Danny and Matthew’s outdoor argument turns into a full-fledged fight), The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) generally squanders the top-notch efforts of a uniformly impressive cast to become an oddly (and distressingly) underwhelming misfire.

*1/2 out of ****