The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)

Unpopular opinion incoming.

Noah Baumbach has made fantastic films and gratingly annoying films. The Squid and the Whale was a fascinating film about fractured families. While We're Young was a great film about hipsters. The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) explores the affects of a father that was never there. The cast is as appetizing as they come. Hoffman, Stiller and Sandler are all giants of their own respective fields and have proven to be amazing dramatic talents. It looks like the perfect pet-project for a celebrated independent filmmaker. But as I watched, I felt something that I usually never feel while watching any movie. Nothing.

The Meyerowitz Stories has no depth. It's a character study of truly empty people. It's Woody Allen's "Interiors" minus the pretentiousness. Dustin Hoffman sleepwalks as Harold Meyerowitz. He seems confused or perhaps just going through the motions in order to get the pay check. Adam Sandler's performance is praised as Danny Meyerowitz, the limping, slovenly-dressed trust fund baby. Praised, perhaps, because he doesn't act like buffoon for once. That's an extremely low bar for praise, especially coming from the star of Punch-Drunk Love. Sandler, like Hoffman, feels entirely lost here. So does Stiller, so does Marvel, so does Thompson. These people are not a fun time to watch. You wouldn't sit next to them on a busy subway car. I didn't understand it. I didn't get it. Maybe it's a comment on the peculiar inner workings of a family unit in which the patriarch is a flighty, off-the-wall artist? But do I care to understand it on that level? Not really.