Why Him? (2016)
Directed by John Hamburg
A dad forms a bitter rivalry with his daughter's young rich boyfriend.
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That’s the challenge Robert De Niro set for himself, and rose to, in the “Meet the Parents” films (though he, in effect, was playing the pest), and “Why Him?,” directed by the gifted John Hamburg (“I Love You, Man”), is a comedy on about that level of execution.
Director and co-writer John Hamburg specializes in the comedy of embarrassment, as seen in such pictures as Along Came Polly and Meet the Parents.
The plot is an inversion of Meet the Parents (which Hamburg co-wrote), with Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston) finding himself repulsed by his beloved daughter Stephanie's (Zoey Deutch) eccentric tech-entrepreneur boyfriend, Laird Mayhew (James Franco), upon meeting him in California.
Franco is Laird Mayhew, a narcissistic man-child and bro-bazillionaire who is the titular “him” of a Meet the Parents comedy in reverse.
This raunchier take on the "Meet the Parents" theme centers on Ned Fleming (Bryan Cranston), owner of a Michigan printing company that's closer to financial ruin than he's told his wife, Barb (Megan Mullally).
Cowriter (with Ian Helfer)/director John Hamburg ("I Love You, Man") dusts off his old "Meet the Parents" script and flips it around with story input from Jonah Hill.
Rob Reiner, director of “A Few Good Men” and “The Princess Bride” and “Misery,” giving us “North,” which inspired Roger’s immortal passage: “I hated this movie.
This latest iteration of a story we've seen many times before — from Vincente Minnelli's Father of the Bride to Meet the Parents (which was co-written by this film's director, John Hamburg) — isn't especially good, nor is it bad.
Cowritten and directed by John Hamburg, who wrote Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, and Little Fockers, Franco's movie gleefully parodies that earlier franchise, along with classics like Vincente Minnelli’s Father of the Bride and Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
That's just one bit of generational humor that's present in "Why Him?" a comedy that follows in the footsteps -- sort of -- of the parents-meet-boyfriend films ranging from 1967's "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" to the more recent "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and "Meet the Parents."
Cowritten and directed by John Hamburg, who wrote Meet the Parents, Meet the Fockers, and Little Fockers, Franco's movie gleefully parodies that earlier franchise, along with classics like Vincente Minnelli’s Father of the Bride and Stanley Kramer’s Guess Who's Coming to Dinner.
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Nor is it a “What About Bob?” situation, where someone is insufferably obnoxious but only one other character sees it and everyone else chides him for being such a grump.
The genre goes back to the ’60s sitcom “Green Acres” (where a whole town of fruitcakes addled poor Mr. Douglas) and to movies like “What About Bob?,” which gave Bill Murray one of his catchiest roles.
Rob Reiner, director of “A Few Good Men” and “The Princess Bride” and “Misery,” giving us “North,” which inspired Roger’s immortal passage: “I hated this movie.
Rob Reiner, director of “A Few Good Men” and “The Princess Bride” and “Misery,” giving us “North,” which inspired Roger’s immortal passage: “I hated this movie.
It’s “Meet the Parents” in reverse crossed with Pier Paolo Pasolini’s “Teorema,” in which Terrence Stamp seduces, one-by-one, a bourgeois family.
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Beatty and Hoffman and Elaine May with “Ishtar.”
Rob Reiner, director of “A Few Good Men” and “The Princess Bride” and “Misery,” giving us “North,” which inspired Roger’s immortal passage: “I hated this movie.