The Upcoming
  • Culture
    • Art
    • Cinema
      • Movie reviews
      • Film festivals
    • Food & Drinks
      • News & Features
      • Restaurant & bar reviews
      • Interviews & Recipes
    • Literature
    • Music
      • Live music
    • Theatre
    • Shows & On demand
  • Fashion & Lifestyle
    • Accessories
    • Beauty
    • News & Features
    • Shopping & Trends
    • Tips & How-tos
    • Fashion weeks
  • What’s On
    • Art exhibitions
    • Theatre shows
  • Tickets
  • Join us
    • Editorial unit
    • Our writers
    • Join the team
    • Join the mailing list
    • Fund us
    • Contact us
  • Interviews
  • Competitions
  • Special events
    • Film festivals
      • Berlin
      • Tribeca
      • Cannes
      • Sundance London
      • Venice
      • London
      • Toronto
    • Fashion weeks
      • London Fashion Week
      • New York Fashion Week
      • Milan Fashion Week
      • Paris Fashion Week
      • Haute Couture
      • London Fashion Week Men’s
  • Facebook

  • Twitter

  • Instagram

  • YouTube

  • Tumblr

  • RSS


London Film Festival 2017

The Meyerowitz Stories

London Film Festival 2017: The Meyerowitz Stories | Review
2 October 2017
The editorial unit
Avatar
The editorial unit
2 October 2017
Public screenings
6th October 2017 5.30pm at Embankment Garden Cinema
7th October 2017 11.30am at Embankment Garden Cinema
12th October 2017 8.45pm at Ciné Lumière

Movie and show review

The editorial unit

The Meyerowitz Stories

★★★★★

Release date

13th October 2017

Platform

Netflix

Links

Facebook

Special event

Noah Baumbach seems to have transformed himself into an indie heir of the Woody Allen of the 70s and 80s. His movies bring back that dramatic and comic spirit, playful and serious at the same time, but fundamentally neurotic. Baumbach is also from New York, and while not all his features have been filmed there, maybe this is the purest New York movie of his to date.

The Meyerowitz universe is a bit Allen, a little Wes Anderson, a pinch of Transparent, with a dose of any Judeo-North American literature classic. Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman) is a veteran sculptor who never achieved the success and prestige that many of his colleagues did and, now a septuagenarian, is a passive-aggressive, egocentric, narcissistic, albeit funny, character. He’s had four marriages and children from two of them. The oldest is Danny (Adam Sandler, in the best performance of his career since Punch Drunk Love), a frustrated musician who has never worked in his life. He has just sent his daughter (Grace Van Patten, excellent) to the same university he went to, and where his father taught. His sister (Elizabeth Marvel) seems as solitary and frustrated as him, both victims of a somewhat monstrous father who never paid attention to them.

The one who had a kinder childhood and who appears to be doing better is Matthew (Ben Stiller), from Harold’s next marriage. He is an accountant, something his father does not respect – or at least that’s what Matthew believes. Despite his happier youth, he’s also having a difficult time. Then there is Harold’s last wife, portrayed by Emma Thompson, a nice but quite useless, alcoholic woman, who seems to have her head permanently in the clouds.

The film is divided into episodes that are focused on each character, with the sale of the house they have in Manhattan and a possible retrospective of Harold’s work as central narrative axes. Through anecdotes that are mostly funny but have a bitter aftertaste, The Meyerowitz Stories focuses on the difficult relationship that these three children have with their father and each other, and the potentially irreparable damage that Harold’s lack of recognition of them could have caused.

Between visits to exhibitions, uncomfortable lunches and dinners, repeated anecdotes, fights and reconciliations, the movie is a sort of neuroses catalogue of a New York Jewish family that could relate to any other place in the world. It is also a film about memory. Or, rather, the memories and stories that families tell themselves, which can be false, intentionally or not. The Meyerowitz do not keep their frustrations and grudges to themselves, so the piece becomes, at times, an excessively descriptive chain of reproaches and recriminations – many of them, extremely entertaining, even when they are almost pathetic.

Baumbach films his characters from close quarters, choosing rare ellipses to interweave chapters, giving the impression that the camera is another member of this vibrant yet troubled family. There is no clinical distance in the film; the director shares, suffers and enjoys with the characters the curious moments that they happen to be living. And although many of them are vitally important from a dramatic point of view, often they are sorted with a good gag or a humorous shot. The Meyerowitz Stories is a screwball comedy for the 21st century.

★★★★★

Diego Lerer

The Meyerowitz Stories is released on Netflix on 13th October 2017.

Read more reviews and interviews from our London Film Festival 2017 coverage here.

For further information about the festival visit the official BFI website here.

Watch the trailer for The Meyerowitz Stories here:

Related ItemsLFFlondon film festivalreview

More in Film festivals

Sherlock Gnomes premiere: A chat with James McAvoy, his co-stars and the film’s creators

Rosamund Kelby
Read More

Tribeca Film Festival 2018: On the red carpet with the stars of Westworld season 2

The editorial unit
Read More

Ravenous (Les Affamés)

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

All the Wild Horses

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More

Los Débiles (The Weak Ones)

★★★★★
Mark Mukasa
Read More

SPK Komplex

★★★★★
Catherine Sedgwick
Read More

The Silent Revolution: An interview with Lena Klenke and Tom Gramenz

Oliver Johnston
Read More

The Silent Revolution: An interview with director Lars Kraume

Oliver Johnston
Read More

The Camino Voyage

★★★★★
Andrew Murray
Read More
Scroll for more
Tap

Movie and show review

The editorial unit

The Meyerowitz Stories

★★★★★

Release date

13th October 2017

Platform

Netflix

Links

Facebook

Special event

Tickets

Theatre tickets

  • Popular

  • Latest

  • TOP PICKS

  • Project Gastronomía: How will Londoners eat in 2050? A symposium on gastronomy and multisensory design
    Food & Drinks
  • Clare Smyth crowned the World’s Best Female Chef 2018
    Food & Drinks
  • Tokio Myers at the Forum
    ★★★★★
    Live music
  • Sherlock Gnomes premiere: A chat with James McAvoy, his co-stars and the film’s creators
    Cinema
  • The Outsider: An interview with director Thomas Meadmore
    Cinema
  • The Phlebotomist at Hampstead Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Prudes at the Royal Court
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • Absolute Hell at the National Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Wound (Inxeba)
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Clare Smyth crowned the World’s Best Female Chef 2018
    Food & Drinks
  • The Phlebotomist at Hampstead Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Prudes at the Royal Court
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Wound (Inxeba)
    ★★★★★
    Movie review
  • Strictly Ballroom at Piccadilly Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre
  • The Writer at the Almeida Theatre
    ★★★★★
    Theatre

Instagram

Something is wrong. Response takes too long or there is JS error. Press Ctrl+Shift+J or Cmd+Shift+J on a Mac.
The Upcoming
Pages
  • Contact us
  • Fund us
  • Join mailing list
  • Join us
  • New London restaurant openings and pop-ups
  • Our London food map
  • Our writers
  • Subscribe
  • What, when, why

Copyright © 2018 FL Media Ltd

Tommy Hilfiger spring/summer 2018 collection catwalk show | LFW
London Film Festival 2017: Nelyubov (Loveless) | Review