in china in 1982 i turned the tables on our national guide and asked him if he had any questions about america . 
i guess i was expecting some sort of political question . 
instead , i was dumfounded by what was most on his mind . 
 " in america , do wives and their mothers-in-law get along well ? " 
he assured me in china that they did , but i am certain if that were true he would not have asked . 
even in china people seem to have problems relating to in- laws . 
perhaps some of life's most difficult relationships arise when families are suddenly artificially joined by marriage . 
a man trying to relate to his new prospective in-laws and vice-versa could be the basis of a very strong comedy . 
meet the parents does not demonstrate that fact , however . 
greg focker ( played by ben stiller ) has been dating and in love with pam byrnes ( teri polo ) for ten months and is now ready to propose to her . 
he will do it during a weekend visit to meet debbie's family and to attend her sister's wedding . 
from the beginning the relationship is awkward between greg and jack and dina byrnes ( robert deniro and blythe danner ) . 
through no fault of his own , the airline has lost greg's luggage . 
and he has to ask to borrow clothing . 
it is the beginning of a game of one-upmanship in which greg is nearly always one-down . 
as the games go on greg is more and more uncomfortable and uneasy which only contributes to the mistakes he makes . 
greg is playing a game he does not understand , in a league he is new to . 
but perhaps along the way he will discover some unexpected secrets about his father-in-law . 
this film had potential in its tale of one-upmanship . 
it has hit on a situation that many in the audience may find familiar--one that has not been done overly frequently in films . 
but the script by jim herzfeld and john hamburg is a little too contrived . 
too many coincidences in the story work against greg . 
the script could not decide if the main character was incompetent or simply unlucky . 
certainly he does not help his situation by doing everything wrong he possibly could , but even when he is trying to do the right things nature conspires against him . 
there is an uneven mix of slapstick sequences and human comedy . 
certainly the last part of the film feels awkwardly written . 
the main reason to see meet the parents is to see robert deniro's performance . 
deniro plays the suspicious and not a little fascistic father as tightly wound and threatening as he can . 
the little judgmental expressions on his face are a show in themselves as greg digs himself deeper and deeper into his insecurities . 
but we do not really see much of that digging . 
ben stiller is an affable presence in the film but is not really stretching himself by playing the role as the nebbish to whom so many bad things happen . 
it is nice to see blythe danner again on the screen . 
but her character has a basic conflict between a basic decency and her love for her husband and the script should have given her more to do with that . 
randy newman has written a playful score . 
in the first few seconds of the film it does something creative i have never heard a film score do before . 
there is a lot of source music that is popular music of the 1960s . 
presumably that is what the upper class listens to at least in somebody's imagination . 
humor is subjective and some this film has been getting some favorable comment . 
but this is a comedy that works only occasionally for me . 
i would have to rate it 4 on the 0 to 10 scale and a 0 on the -4 to +4 scale .