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| Meet the Parents | |
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| Directed by | Jay Roach |
| Produced by | Robert De Niro Jay Roach Jane Rosenthal Nancy Tenenbaum |
| Written by | Greg Glienna Mary Ruth Clarke James Herzfeld John Hamburg |
| Starring | Ben Stiller Robert De Niro Teri Polo Blythe Danner Owen Wilson |
| Music by | Randy Newman |
| Distributed by | - North America - Universal Studios - International - DreamWorks |
| Release date(s) | October 6, 2000 |
| Running time | 108 min. |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
| Budget | $55,000,000 |
| Gross revenue | $330,444,045 |
| Followed by | Meet the Fockers (2004) |
| Official website | |
| Allmovie profile | |
| IMDb profile | |
Meet the Parents is a 2000 comedy film starring Robert De Niro and Ben Stiller. Directed by Jay Roach of Austin Powers fame, the film chronicles a series of unfortunate events that befall a good hearted but hapless male nurse while visiting his girlfriend's parents.
The film is a remake of a 1992 independent film of the same name which has since been pulled from all distribution.[1] The original featured Greg Glienna who wrote, starred and directed the 76 minute film.[2][3]
The film's success inspired a 2004 sequel Meet the Fockers[4][5] as well as a reality television show entitled Meet My Folks in 2002.[6] In 2007, Universal Studios announced yet another sequel titled Little Fockers.[7][8]. The film spawned the famous arguement that "you can't say the word 'bomb' on an airplane".
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Greg Focker (Ben Stiller) is a male nurse who is intending to propose to his girlfriend Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo). His plans to propose to Pam in front of her students get disrupted by the news that Pam's sister Debbie (Nicole DeHuff) is getting married and Greg and Pam are invited to spend the weekend before the wedding at Pam's parents' house on Long Island. Hoping to make the best of the situation, Greg now plans to propose to Pam in front of her family and brings the engagement ring he bought for Pam with him.
Upon arrival to Long Island, Greg meets Pam's father Jack (Robert De Niro) and mother Dina (Blythe Danner). He is also introduced to the family cat Mr. Jinx whom Jack treats as a member of the family. Greg does not like cats but he tries to conceal that fact in front of Jack in order to stay in his good graces. Jack takes an instant dislike towards Greg and, subtly at first but more openly as time goes by, criticizes Greg for his choice of career as a male nurse and anything else he sees as a difference between Greg and the Byrnes family; moreover, he hides several cameras in the house to spy on him. Greg desperately tries to impress Jack but his efforts fail one by one. Learning from Pam that Jack is a retired florist and an avid rare flower collector, Greg presents Jack with a gift of a flower pot containing the bulb of a very rare flower but Jack seems completely unimpressed by this. At dinnertime, Jack insists that Greg say a grace, despite the fact that Greg is Jewish. Greg, inexperienced at prayer, ad-libs a somewhat unorthodox prayer that raises everyone's eyebrows. Greg further tries to impress Jack by telling stories about how he grew up on a farm when in reality he grew up in Detroit. He makes up a story about milking a nursing cat in order to feed one of its newborn kittens but it also fails to impress Jack. After dinner, Greg presents the family with a bottle of cheap champagne he purchased at a local drug store. While trying to open the bottle, the cork flies out of the bottle and hits the urn containing the ashes of Jack's beloved mother, breaking the urn and spilling the ashes on the ground, upsetting Jack even further. Mr Jinx's decision of using the ashes as litter further worsen the situation.
Adding to Greg's problems is the fact that the airline company had lost one of his bags, the one in which he packed the engagement ring thereby putting on hold his plans to propose to Pam.
Meeting the rest of Pam's family and friends, Greg still feels as an outsider. He is introduced to Pam's ex-boyfriend Kevin (Owen Wilson) who is constructing the wedding altar for Debbie's wedding. Although Greg is already uncomfortable being in Kevin's presence due to his previous relationship with Pam, Jack is quick to point out Kevin's financial success, as a result of his investments in the stock market, compared to Greg's job as a nurse.
Late one night at the Byrnes home, Greg stumbles upon a hidden room containing photographs of Jack alongside some of the world's most powerful politicians. Jack enters the room and shows a startled Greg a polygraph machine that he owns and asks him to take a lie detector test to which Greg reluctantly agrees. Pam later admits to Greg that Jack was never a florist, rather that he is a retired CIA operative. This fact does not make Greg feel any better since he was, admittedly, intimidated by Jack when he thought Jack was a florist.
Despite honest efforts to impress the family, Greg keeps doing things to make himself an easy target for ridicule and even anger. He slams a ball into Debbie's face during a game of volleyball leaving her with a broken nose and a black eye just before her wedding; he uses a malfunctioning toilet that ends up overflowing the home's septic tank and results in a major cleanup the day of the wedding rehearsal; he sets on fire the heavily lacquered wedding altar that Kevin recently delivered to the home's back yard. Greg also inadvertently lets Jinx out of the house and sends the family into a frenzied search for the beloved cat. Desperation leads Greg goes to a local animal shelter where a similar stray cat had wandered in. The only difference between the stray cat and Jinxie is the color of the stray's tail which Greg fixes with some spray paint and brings the disguised cat back to grateful Jack. Hailed as a hero, Greg quickly becomes the villain again when a neighbour of the Byrnes' calls with the news that Jinx wandered into the house next door and Jack discovers Greg's cover up scheme.
At this point in time, everyone in the Byrnes family, including Pam, agrees that it's best for Greg to leave Long Island until the wedding is concluded. Unwillingly, Greg leaves and goes to the airport where he is detained by the airport security for insisting that his bag, the same one previously lost by the airline company, stay with him rather than be checked. Back at the Byrnes household, Jack tries to convince Pam that Greg was lying to her about everything and, as proof, he explains that his friends at the CIA were unable to find any proof of any Greg Focker ever taking the MCAT which Greg claimed he had passed (with the initial intention of becoming a doctor). Upon learning that Greg's real first name is Gaylord and being presented with proof from Pam that he did in fact pass the test well, Jack realizes that Pam loves Greg and that she wants to marry him (also listening, unnoticed, to a Pam's phone call to Greg). Jack rushes to the airport, convinces the airport security to release Greg and bring him back to the Byrnes household to a grateful Pam.
As Greg is proposing to Pam, Jack and Dina listen in on their conversation from another room, agreeing that everything did, in fact, turn out in the best interest of their daughter and the only thing left to do is to meet Greg's parents (which preludes to the film's sequel, Meet the Fockers).
The film was a financial success, taking in USD$ $28.6 million during its opening weekend and averaging $10,950 per theatre in a total of 2,614 theaters. It spent four weeks as the #1 movie at the U.S. box office[9] and, by the close date of March 29, 2001 the film grossed $166.2 million in the United States, and a total of $330.4 million worldwide,[10] making it the 7th highest grossing film of the year.[11]. It is also the highest grossing movie ever (U.S.) to be released in the month of October.
The film was generally well received by critics, lauded for its deadpan humor[12] and subtlety[13] in a time when most Hollywood comedies were seen as cashing in on recognizable over-the-top "antics" of big-name comedy stars.[12] As of May 26, 2008, the aggregate review website Rotten Tomatoes registered 82% positive reviews based on reviews from 127 critics[14] while at the same time Metacritic, another aggregate review website, registered a rating of 73 out of 100, based on 33 reviews, [15] which is classified as Generally favorable reviews by the website's rating system.[16] Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film 3 stars out of 4 comparing the film to Roach's previous work on the Austin Powers series and offering his opinion that "[Meet the Parents] is funnier because it never tries too hard".[13] Lisa Schwarzbaum from Entertainment Weekly called the script "unforced" and concluded that the film "goes down like a flute of Champagne, leaving an aftertaste of giggles".[12]
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| Preceded by Remember the Titans |
Box office number-one films of 2000 (USA) October 8, 2000 – October 29, 2000 |
Succeeded by Charlie's Angels |