Divine
Foolishness
Robert De Niro's comic
menace and Ben Stiller's genial haplessness combine in an
inspired farce
By RICHARD SCHICKEL
Let's say
the stern father has just read a perfectly ghastly memorial
poem to his dead mother. Now let's say the young man courting
his daughter has just made a little joke about the urn on
the dining-room mantel. It does not take a great comic mind
to imagine that it contains grandma's remains.
Now let's
arm that young man with a bottle of cheap, celebratory champagne.
When he uncorks it, can you guess where the cork is going
to fly? And what it must do to the precariously placed urn?
If you have a taste for farce, you can.
Let us now
introduce into the equation a beloved family cat, whose excretory
habits have already been the subject of slightly strained
discussion. Can you predict what he might do, when confronted
with a nice, fresh pile of ashes in the midst of a nasty hubbub
in which his needs are being ignored? If you can, then you
have a taste for something in short supply lately-farce that
is divinely invented and perfectly orchestrated.
And you
had better skid, slide and stumble as fast as your flailing
limbs can carry you to Meet the Parents. It is the work of
director Jay Roach, whose Austin Powers movies were intermittently
funny but not what anyone would call intricately constructed
machines. What those movies needed was a couple of skilled
tool-and-die makers like Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg, who
wrote this screenplay. And a bunch of actors, led by Robert
De Niro and Ben Stiller, who understand that palpable reality
will always trump frenzied fantasy when it comes to getting
laughs.
De Niro
is Jack Byrnes, formerly (or maybe not so formerly) a cia
operative, projecting an air of sweet reason from his suburban
colonial home. That it contains a secret lair equipped with
a lie detector is nobody's business. That the lyrics of his
favorite song, Puff the Magic Dragon, may contain a hidden
metaphor comes as an unwelcome surprise to him. That a suggestion
that his affection for his daughters, especially Pam (Teri
Polo), may be touched by feelings that would make Oedipus
blush could earn you termination with maximum prejudice-as
the beta male candidate for her affections, the unfortunately
named Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), learns.
He's the
kind of guy who would rather be a male nurse than a doctor.
Also the kind of guy whose luggage the airline is bound to
lose. And the sort you know is going to end up on Jack's roof,
chasing a cat, holding a live wire in one hand, putting out
a leaf fire with one foot while trying to pretend the overflow
in the septic tank down below is not his fault. De Niro is
getting awfully good at comic menace (see Analyze This), and
Stiller, a handsome guy who never alludes to his good looks,
is a deliciously preoccupied innocent.
But then,
preoccupation may be the key to this movie's success. All
the members of the family are trying to focus on the wedding
of Pam's sister, which means they would prefer Greg, the outsider,
to be the fly on the wall, not the fly in the ointment. Alas,
poor Focker. He can't help himself. And we can't help ourselves
from falling about, equally helpless, at this superbly antic
movie.
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January 15, 2001
| No. 2
COVER
STORIES
MEDICINE:
The Future of Drugs
Now that our dna has been decoded, the search for better, faster and more
effective medications begins in earnest
THE
LABS: Inside the Brave New Pharmacy
At a leading genomics company, the star of the show is a robot
DISEASES:
The Search for Cures
For AIDS, cancer, mental illness, obesity, Alzheimer's, etc.
Antibiotics:
The microbes are winning
Delivery:
Beyond pills and needles
Natural remedies:
Turning poisons into potions
Recreational
drugs: What comes after K and ecstasy?
THE
YEAR IN MEDICINE: An A-to-Z guide
T
H E A R T S
CINEMA:
East meets West
in a film with universal appeal
Robert de Niro and Ben Stiller team up in a funny
farce
Three generations of Ralph Fiennes in Sunshine
MUSIC:
Erykah Badu's new CD has soul and guts
TRAVELER'S
ADVISORY
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