The Meyerowitz Stories

We had heard an interview with Noah Baumbach, the writer and director of the new film, “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected),” and had suggested the film to Ava and Jason when we were making our plans for Sunday. But they told us they had already seen the film on Netflix. To be honest, it had never even occurred to me that it might be released on Netflix at the same time that it was released in the theaters, but I guess this is now being done. We do have Netflix in New York so the other night we settled in at home to watch the film.

The film is essentially a series of vignettes, each starting with a title. The first is “Danny Meyerowitz was trying to park,” which introduces the character played by Adam Sandler, who has no hesitation to loudly express his frustration at trying to find and fit into a parking space in Manhattan. Fortunately, his lack of anger management skills does not impinge on his patient and loving relationship with his daughter, Eliza (Grace Van Patten), who is about to leave for her freshman year at Bard College.

The same cannot be said about Danny’s relationship with his father, Harold Meyerowitz (Dustin Hoffman). Frankly, the senior Meyerowitz is extremely egocentric and overall a fairly intolerable fellow. He is an artist who never found great commercial success, which has left him bitter and angry at everyone, including his (second) wife Maureen (Emma Thompson), his daughter Jean (Elizabeth Marvel), and even his “favored” son Matthew (Ben Stiller). Matthew is a successful business manager who lives and works in Los Angeles and does not visit often. It is only when Harold becomes ill and appears to be nearing death that the siblings are forced to reunite, and there is quite a bit of pain before they finally reach some ability to care for each other.

Like all of Noah Baumbach’s films, including “The Squid and the Whale,” “Margot at the Wedding,” and “Frances Ha” to mention a few, there is a lot to think about here.

Part of getting back to normal life is taking care of mundane tasks. The dentist we had been seeing for the past few years decided to retire, so we had to find a new one. One downside of the previous dentist was that he was located in Manhattan in the East 60s, rather inconvenient from Riverdale for a dentist. A friend recommended someone local and we both went in this week. This morning I went for my routine (every 4 months or so) visit with my pulmonologist; fortunately, everything is stable. Tomorrow we are having the outdoor lawn sprinkler system (something the previous owner had installed which I must admit is a very nice feature) drained for the winter, and next week the folks who service the heating will be coming (maybe it will be cold enough to need it?). All mundane things, but I am happy not to have too much excitement right now.

Hope everyone is well.

Love,

Rebecca