“The Meyerowitz Stories” is a film that knows what it wants to be. It doesn’t try to do anything too fancy or too grandiose. It’s not the best movie on Netflix, and it isn’t worth your time. The movie stars Dustin Hoffman as Harold Meyerowitz, Adam Sandler as Danny Meyerowitz and Ben Stiller as Matt Meyerowitz.

    “The Meyerowitz Stories” centers on the Meyerowitz family and the children’s relationship with their father. Harold Meyerowitz is an artist and neglected two of his three children, Danny and Jean. He then got remarried, and had Matt, Stiller’s character. Matt was coddled by Harold, which Danny and Jean dislike.

    First of all, the performances by the whole cast are great, especially Sandler and Stiller. There was one scene in particular near the end of the movie with Sandler and Stiller that was very moving and great. I also liked the performance by Dustin Hoffman. Hoffman’s character is supposed to be someone that people dislike, and that is definitely reflected in his performance. I wasn’t even in the movie, and I disliked his character.

    One negative is that the movie did not focus much on the relationship of Jean and Harold. Danny, Sandler’s character, and Jean, played by Elizabeth Marvel, were in the same family, so they might have had some of the same experiences, but not all of the same ones. There was more room in the movie for some parts about her relationship with her father. It’s not a major problem but something that could have been easily remedied with a few scenes.

    The story in “The Meyerowitz Stories” isn’t bad, but it also isn’t anything to write home about. I enjoyed the parts of the story that involved interactions between Sandler and Stiller’s characters. They were the best characters in the movie, and their parts in the story are very important as well. Sandler was neglected, and Stiller was loved more for it. This is a point of contention between the two, and I loved the scenes where they are together, just talking to one another. These small interactions are where “The Meyerowitz Stories” is best. They move the story forward in small parts but give viewers great insight into the characters.

    However, I didn’t like how separated parts of the story were. Occasionally, parts of the movie would move forward in time, but the movie would not tell the viewer by how much, or why it was moved forward. This left me kind of disappointed, because I wanted to see more of the characters at the point right before they moved forward in time. It took away the best parts of the movie, hurting it in the long run.

    Overall, “The Meyerowitz Stories” is a fun, small movie that isn’t great, but is also a good return to form for some of the actors in the film. I liked the interactions between the siblings, but disliked the exclusion of some of the characters in the story. It is a good movie to watch if you have nothing else, but otherwise, don’t watch it.