Review of The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017) by Lois M — 24 Nov 2017

A film filled with angst and the struggles to love and be loved, yet funny and heartwarming. Adam Sandler's character is trying to navigate his way back into the world, after a recent divorce and a life as a stay at home dad.

He attempts to reunite with his own Dad, the self-absorbed, narcissistic mediocre sculptor who was never able to give him or his sister the love and attention they wanted and needed. Adam Sandler was the perfect casting, his man-boy persona fits the character's searching need for something he never got. Ben Stiller is good as the half-brother golden boy who did seem to get what he needed for his Dad, but doesn't seem any the better for it. The stoic sister rounds out the family.

Dustin Hoffman and his wife number three, Emma Thompson completely inhabit the roles of the self-absorbed narcissistic grownups. Dustin Hoffman's first wife, the mother of Adam Sandler and his sister, is absent from the film, but we get a glance at their step-mother, Candice Bergen, and her remorse at not nurturing the two when they were children, a remorse Dustin Hoffman's character never shares.

This is a film about a Father who was not at all equipped to be a Dad. His super charged ego completely consumed him, leaving no space for anything or anyone else. The Meyerowitz Stories show us one possible result of growing up with a parent like this, in a balance of pathos and humor that so many of us can identify with, whether we were the parent or the child.