Chicago male nurse and chronic under-achiever Greg Focker meets his charming teacher girlfriend Pam Byrnes' parents Jack and Dina before proposing, but suspicious Jack is an overprotective f... Read allChicago male nurse and chronic under-achiever Greg Focker meets his charming teacher girlfriend Pam Byrnes' parents Jack and Dina before proposing, but suspicious Jack is an overprotective former CIA agent - every date's worst nightmare.Chicago male nurse and chronic under-achiever Greg Focker meets his charming teacher girlfriend Pam Byrnes' parents Jack and Dina before proposing, but suspicious Jack is an overprotective former CIA agent - every date's worst nightmare.
- Nominated for 1 Oscar
- 7 wins & 15 nominations total
- Bob Banks
- (as Thomas McCarthy, Tom McCarthy)
Storyline
Did you know
- TriviaRobert De Niro wanted "Mr. Jinx" to appear in more scenes than he was supposed to because De Niro liked the cat so much. Apparently, De Niro would also play with the cat between filming scenes.
- GoofsWhen Greg is at the drug store counter he asks if they have any nicotine patches. He is told that they don't but that they do have the gum. When the store associate takes the gum off the shelf, it is next to boxes of Nicorette patches.
- Quotes
Dina Byrnes: I had no idea you could milk a cat!
Greg Focker: Oh yeah, you can milk anything with nipples.
Jack Byrnes: [He reacts] I have nipples, Greg, could you milk me?
- Crazy creditsDuring the opening logos, the singers in the theme music are lyrically commenting "Look at the light coming out of the earth" during the Universal logo, and "Look at the boy sitting on the moon" during the Dreamworks logo.
- Alternate versionsIn the version that airs on Freeform, the scene near the end in which Greg gets into an argument with the airline stewardess and his subsequent interrogation by an airline official removes all references to the fact that Greg mentioned the word "bomb" on the airplane.
- ConnectionsEdited into Meet the Parents: Deleted Scenes (2001)
- SoundtracksA Fool in Love
Music and Lyrics by Randy Newman
Opening Title Performed by Randy Newman
End Title Duet Performed by Randy Newman and Susanna Hoffs and Produced by Mitchell Froom
Randy Newman appears courtesy of DreamWorks Records
Most of all, I'd say it's a good date flick to prepare yourself for the inevitable agony of meeting your own boyfriend/girlfriend's parents. We all know it sucks. (If you don't think so, oh, just you wait. Sometimes it takes years for them to expose themselves as the hideous flesh eating monsters that they are.) De Niro manages to take us to the utter extreme of monster but without shattering our suspension of disbelief. This is a key point. If the situation were to become too absurd , we would lose focus on the story and instead hone in on the individual gags. While there are plenty of funny gags to go round, they are really just dressing on an already funny premise: the story of an underdog who just cannot fit in to a judgmental bourgeois family no matter how hard (and usually because of how hard) he tries.
Ben Stiller shows his acting diversity (while on a different movie set playing the terminally airheaded Zoolander) as a dorky protagonist whose best intentions are always poorly timed or received completely the wrong way.
The antagonists, in this case, everybody else in the movie, tread the fine line of comedy and irritation. That is, at any time you could find yourself laughing or hating them. What's masterfully done is the filmmaker's (and of course actors') ability to turn you on a dime, take you to the edge of wanting to kill someone but then having a hearty laugh at their antics. Like I said earlier, Robert De Niro is the anchor that makes this possible, and any casting short of him (well, or maybe Christopher Walken) would have resulted in the film falling apart due to the demands it puts on our willingness to accept a complete jerk like the character he plays. Really his only redeeming quality is that he likes cats. But that's the point, I guess. No matter how rude a person may seem, there's always something redeeming in there.
Well, maybe except for the hilariously loathsome airline attendant who appears in a short but pivotal role at the film's climax. To me, that scene was worth the price of admission.
Don't think twice, this is a movie worth seeing. Other similar films focusing on severely dysfunctional families trying to act normally include De Niro & Billy Crystal in "Analyze This", a great Andy Garcia movie called "City Island" and--this may be a stretch but--I think fans of "Meet the Parents" would really enjoy the original British "Death at a Funeral" (2007). Ya just gotta love comedies about trying to be normal in an utterly abnormal situation.
Details
- Release date
- Country of origin
- Official sites
- Languages
- Also known as
- La familia de mi novia
- Filming locations
- Production companies
- See more company credits at IMDbPro
Box office
- Budget
- $55,000,000 (estimated)
- Gross US & Canada
- $166,244,045
- Opening weekend US & Canada
- $28,623,300
- Oct 8, 2000
- Gross worldwide
- $330,444,045
- Runtime1 hour 48 minutes
- Color
- Sound mix
- Aspect ratio
- 1.85 : 1