For Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), the earnest, put-upon hero of Meet the Parents,absolutely nothing goes right from the very beginning. First of all, his attempt to propose to his girlfriend, Pam (Teri Polo), is interrupted by a cellphone call from Pam's sister, Debbie (Nicole DeHuff), that she just got engaged andwill be getting married in two weeks. Greg decides to hold off on the proposal until he's met Pam's parents, because hegets the feeling that Pam's father is an old-fashioned sort who would appreciate his askingfor approval first.

Two weeks later, Greg and Pam travel to Pam's home on Long Island for Debbie's wedding.This is Greg's time to shine, a weekend to impress Pam's parents and demonstrate that heis more than worthy of asking her hand in marriage. Greg has no problems winning overPam's mother, Dina (Blythe Danner), who is sure from the start that Greg is a good guy.Pam's father, Jack (Robert De Niro), is a whole other story.

Strike one against Greg is his name. "Interesting last name," Dina says tentatively whenthey first meet. "How do you pronounce it?" "Exactly like it's spelled," Greg replies in theweary voice of a man who has spent more than 30 years dealing with the fact that his lastname sounds almost exactly like a variation of the most obscene four-letter word in theEnglish language.

Strike two against Greg is his profession: He's a male nurse. "Not a lot of men in yourprofession, are there Greg?" Jack asks. Of course, as Seinfeld would say, there's nothingwrong with being a male nurse, but the fact that both Debbie's fiancé, Bob, andBob's father (James Rebhorn) are doctors doesn't make the situation any easier.

Strike three against Greg is the fact that he smokes, which Jack sees as a sign of weakness.Thus, he spends the whole film chewing wads of nicotine gum. The gum eventuallybecomes a measure of Greg's increasingly desperate situation: the more gum he chews, theworse he's doing.

Strike four against Greg is his dislike of cats. Jack is enamored of Mr. Jinks, their pet catwho he has trained to use the toilet. During their initial meeting, Pam blurts out that Greghates cats, something he spends the rest of the movie trying to deny. "I just prefer dogs," ishis rather weak-sounding rationale.

Strike five against Greg is the fact that the airline has lost his luggage, so he is forced to borrowill-fitting clothing from Pam's pot-head younger brother. Strike six is a scene in which heopens a bottle of champagne and destroys the urn that holds the ashes of Jack's dearlydeparted mother. Strike seven is the fact that the best man in Debbie's wedding is Kevin(Owen Wilsen), Pam's ultra-rich ex-fianc* who Jack obviously favors. Strike eight is a scenein which Greg gets a little overzealous in playing water volleyball and gives the bride-to-bea black eye. And so on and so forth.

Basically, Greg can't do anything right, and the harder he tries, the deeper he digs himself in.Of course, his quest for acceptance is not aided by Jack, a hard-nosed man with a frankdisposition and a minimal sense of humor. He has a set of inviolable standards, each one ofwhich Greg is, of course, sure to violate. And, no matter what Greg says, Jack will analyzeit, question it, and eventually reinterpret it, such as his rendering of Greg's affinity for dogsinto a need for an "emotionally shallow" animal that's "easy to break."

De Niro plays Jack in broadly comic fashion, sometimes going a bit overboard, such as thescene in which he makes all kinds of perplexed facial expressions at Greg's attempt to saygrace during dinner. Still, like his role in Analyze This (1999), De Niro's screenexperience and the natural gravity he carries as an actor lends weight to the role. Simplyput, it's hard not to take De Niro seriously in any role.

Ben Stiller continues to perfect the art of playing exasperated roles of comicembarrassment. His purpose in Meet the Parents is to offer a readily identifiablecharacter with whom the audience can empathize--and then wince and shudder with wheneverything goes wrong. While they are some broad, slapstick laughs in Meet theParents, much of the laughter is of the painful sort because Greg is constantly going inthe reverse direction. Rather than impressing Pam's parents, he continually upsets them.

Directed by Jay Roach's (Austin Powers), Meet the Parents generates mostof its laughs in the give-and-take between Stiller and De Niro. There are some broad comicmoments, including the obligatory gross-out scene involving an overflowing septic tank, butthe most consistently funny scenes are the ones in which Greg and Jack go head to head.Of course, Greg can't gain any ground, and that's part of the humor: He's literally spinninghis wheels. Of course, Meet the Parents is also a romantic comedy, thus there islittle surprise at the reconciliation in the end. Still, it ends on a hilarious note (potentiallyruined, I might add, by its inclusion in the trailer) that suggests that Greg and Jack'srelationship is still far from cemented.

Copyright © 2000, 2001 James Kendrick