Meet the Parents (2000)

Male nurse Greg Focker meets his girlfriend's parents before proposing, but her suspicious father is every date's worst nightmare.

Director:

Jay Roach

Writers:

Greg Glienna, Mary Ruth Clarke,

Stars:

Robert De Niro, Ben Stiller, Teri Polo

Nominated for 1 Oscar. Another 7 wins & 14 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Robert De Niro	...	Jack Byrnes
Ben Stiller	...	Gaylord 'Greg' Focker
Teri Polo	...	Pam Byrnes
Blythe Danner	...	Dina Byrnes
Nicole DeHuff	...	Deborah Byrnes
Jon Abrahams	...	Denny Byrnes
Owen Wilson	...	Kevin Rawley
James Rebhorn	...	Dr. Larry Banks
Thomas McCarthy	...	Dr. Bob Banks
Phyllis George	...	Linda Banks
Kali Rocha	...	Atlantic American Flight Attendant
Bernie Sheredy	...	Norm the Interrogator
Judah Friedlander	...	Pharmacy Clerk
Peter Bartlett	...	Animal Shelter Worker
John Elsen	...	Chicago Airport Security

Storyline

A Jewish male nurse plans to ask his live-in girl friend to marry him. However, he learns that her strict father expects to be asked for his daughter's hand before she can accept. Thus begins the visit from Hell as the two travel to meet Mom and Dad, who turns out to be former CIA with a lie detector in the basement. Coincidentally, a sister also has announced her wedding to a young doctor. Of course everything that can go wrong, does, including the disappearance of Dad's beloved Himalayan cat, Jinxie.

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Plot Keywords:

male nurse | nurse | cia | cat | mishap | 

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Taglines:

First comes love. Then comes the interrogation.

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Genres:

Comedy | Romance

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug references and language

Details

Official Sites:

Universal Pictures and Dreamworks LLC

Country:

USA

Language:

English Thai Spanish Hebrew French

Release Date:

6 October 2000 (USA)

Also Known As:

Meine Braut, ihr Vater und ich

Filming Locations:

Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$55,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

£2,261,785 (UK) (15 December 2000)

Gross:

ESP 2,256,312,819 (Spain) (29 June 2001)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Universal Pictures, DreamWorks SKG, Nancy Tenenbaum Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

108 min

Sound Mix:

DTS Dolby Digital SDDS

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Writer Jerry Stahl, whom Ben Stiller portrayed in Permanent Midnight, co-wrote the "cat milking" scene.

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Goofs

On the way to Pam's parents' house, she opens the gift box. This gives the impression that the top and body of the box have been wrapped separately so that you can just open the lid. Later, when Dina opens the package she has to unwrap it like a normal flip-top box.

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Quotes

Jack Byrnes: Trust me, Greg, when you start having little Fockers running around, you'll feel the need for this type of security.

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Crazy Credits

During 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.

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Connections

Referenced in Robot Chicken: 1987 (2006)

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Soundtracks

"Flower Duet"
(uncredited)
from "Lakmé"
Written by Léo Delibes

User Reviews

Very funny - but the real strength of the film is being able to relate to the characters

Our story begins when a male nurse named Greg Focker (Stiller) is about to propose to his girlfriend, Pam (Teri Polo); unfortunately, things come to worst and before Greg can say, "Will you marry me?" he finds out that Pam's father, Jack (Robert De Niro) approved of Pam's sister's fiancé because he asked Jack's permission to marry her first. Taken aback, Greg decides to wait until tomorrow, whence they are going to meet Pam's parents, and ask Jack for approval before proposing to Pam. Should be a piece of cake, right? Wrong. Pam's mother (Blythe Danner) is very nice, but herein lies the problem: Not only is it apparent from the start that Pam's plant-expert father is not really a plant-expert (as Greg learns after Jack doesn't seem to recognize a plant Greg gives to him--one of the rarest plants in the world), but it turns out Jack is really in the CIA and was a "human lie detector," as Pam herself puts it. In fact, Jack even gives Greg a lie detector test in one scene to see if he liked the dinner earlier in the evening. "Yes," Greg replies, to see the needle jumping. "Well, it was a little rare for my tastes, maybe." Greg, desperately seeking approval (and nervous as ever), seems to unintentionally cause mayhem in his possible parents-to-be's home. Nerves shot like a drug addict, Greg is the definition of a nervous wreck, and all his problems seem to escalate more and more until a funny-if-sappy comedic showdown.

You know how sometimes you are really nervous, but try to hide the fact? You seem to keep your cool, until you do something, then all your nervousness explodes and you start knocking over things, saying stupid things--single-handedly DOING stupid things that you just never do? And then you look around and everyone is looking at you like you are some sort of freak? Well, that's how it is with Greg's character in "Meet the Parents"--he is so easy to identify with. Just like all of us, we want to keep our cool and impress people--but once we lose it, the coolness seems to slip farther and farther away from our grip until we are klutzes on feet. For Greg's character, small things turn bigger and bigger and bigger--from knocking over the remains of Jack's mother (and having a cat go to the bathroom on the remains), to setting the house on fire and busting the septic tank. Situations seem to escalate farther and farther out of control and they just keep getting worse and worse.

In one scene, Greg tries to impress everyone while playing volleyball in a pool. His team is losing because of him. "Get up and hit the ball," Jack says to him. So the next time the ball comes around to Greg, he jumps up and smacks the ball with all his might, sending it flying towards...Pam's sister (whose wedding is the next day), shattering her nose. Greg lands back in the pool and seems to be happy, until he realizes he smacked his sister-in-law-to-be in the nose. Then everyone looks at him like he's an insensitive idiot.

Things like that have happened to me countless times, and that is why I can so easily identify with Greg. People are yelling at Greg to do something, and when he finally does it, it backfires and everyone looks at him like he's stupid, even though he did exactly what he was told.

That's the kind of thing that makes this movie so great--not only is it extremely funny, but we can easily identify with the main character countless times throughout the film. That is, perhaps, the best thing about this comedy.