In between watching the World Series this week, you might want to sneak out to see two smaller, well-done films as relief from the tension. “The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected),” is the latest offering from writer/director Noah Baumbach. His films of dysfunctional or unhappy families often reflect our own society’s problems, and this is his best work so far. The family at its center is a beaut: Everything pivots around the father, Harold (Dustin Hoffman), a minor sculptor with a major ego; the step-mother, (a delicious Emma Thompson), a wacky alcoholic who goes on and off the wagon; older son, Danny (Adam Sandler), who’s never had a “real” job; daughter Jean, (Elizabeth Marvel), a depressed recluse; and younger half-brother, Matthew (Ben Stiller), a financial success with hints of a messy emotional life. The only not-unhappy-so-far family member is Danny’s daughter Eliza, (a poised Grace Van Patten), but give her time, right?
The story hinges on a potential retrospective of Harold’s work at Bard College, where he taught for years. Estranged siblings are forced to interact, Harold’s narcissism is tolerated until it becomes rage-making, and conflicts erupt and are seldom solved.
The script’s comedy and drama mix well. Both Sandler and Stiller are so very good, showing us much more depth and range than we’ve seen before. For me, Dustin Hoffman is miscast; we need to feel that this aging man used to be sexually compelling, a roaring lion, and Hoffman doesn’t give us that color at all. In fact, the character is so self-centered, whiny and verbally dismissive that it’s hard to care about him, but like his sons and fourth wife, we do. Why? Because it’s family and, in Baumbach’s view, the concept of family supersedes all else.
“Professor Marston and the Wonder Women” was a surprise to me. I was not familiar with this history behind the creation of “Wonder Woman” and what an interesting story it is. The conception of the character was steeped in psychological theory, sexual dominance/submission, a ménage a trois, and the need to be free from societal constraints. All that might go down fairly easily (at least in some parts of the country) today, but in the late 1920s and for 25 afterward? Not so much. It’s a fascinating tale and the cast—Luke Evans, Rebecca Hall, and Bella Heathcote—is uniformly excellent, but the film feels oddly bloodless; it’s as though the filmmakers so wanted to avoid being seen as in any way salacious, they went too far the other way. Still, it’s a fascinating story and worth a viewing.
Last week, for reasons that are unclear to me, I found myself binge-watching two series on Netflix that are similar to each other in so many ways that I was in danger of confusing one with the other when I took much-needed breaks. But to be fair, they are each, in their way, unique and compelling slices of recent American history and both are highly recommended. The first, “Manhunt: The Unabomber,” was on the Discovery Channel this past year and is now streaming on Netflix. It details the intriguing story of how Ted Kaczynski, the infamous, flawed genius behind a series of bombings from 1978 through 1995, was finally identified and then apprehended. Along the way, the science of “linguistic forensics” was created: The Unabomber was identified through patterns in his writings. Paul Bettany is a standout as Kaczynski, haunted, manic, arrogant, brilliant and—at last—tragic.
“Mindhunter,” new on Netflix, explores the birth of another new science: FBI profiling. This one was developed in the late 1970s during a psychological study of incarcerated multiple murderers, which we now call “serial killers,” another expression created back then. Space limits me from saying much more, but do see this chilling, well-written and -acted (especially the amazing actors who depict the murderers) new series. You won’t regret it.
