Ben Stiller plays the unfortunately named Greg Focker. He's a male nurse, quite satisfied with his profession as well as with girlfriend Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo). Greg is considering asking Pam to marry him. Then he overhears a phone conversation between Pam and her newly-engaged sister Debbie; Pam remarks that Debbie's fiancee was smart enough to ask Daddy's permission before popping the question. Greg decides that he will also ask permission.

He and Pam travel to the quaint New York town where Jack Byrnes (Robert DeNiro) and his wife Dina (Blythe Danner) live. From the moment they meet, it's clear that Jack and Dina don't like Greg. They don't like his name, they don't like his car, and they don't understand why he chose to be a nurse when he could have been a doctor. More than just not being liked, Greg also clearly doesn't fit in. The Byrnes family all get one another's jokes, but when he makes a joke, everybody looks at him like he's an alien. Everything he says seems out of place or inappropriate. In an effort to compensate, Greg begins telling little white lies, such as the one about his attempt to milk a cat. The exchange is typical of the reaction he gets:

Jack: You can milk a cat?
Greg: Sure. You can milk anything that has nipples.
Jack: I have nipples, Greg. Could you milk me?

Robert DeNiro puts Ben Stiller to the test in Meet the Parents

The longer the weekend rolls on, the stranger things become. Greg creates constant chaos with his attempts to fit in. Everything he does produces disastrous results. Then he begins to suspect that Jack may be more than a concerned parent. He claims to be in the exotic flower business, but he has a strange sense of paranoia and a lie detector hidden in a secret room in his den. (Greg eventually gets hooked up to it.) As Debbie's wedding draws closer, things get worse. Greg inadvertently ruins several of the preparations, and Pam's ex-boyfriend - the annoyingly perfect Kevin (Owen Wilson) shows up. Although they have long since broken up, Kevin still seems to carry a torch for Pam. And he doesn't really like Greg either.

Meet the Parents is a comedy of embarrassments that allows Murphy's Law to take over. It exaggerates very real situations for comic effect. Most of us have never knocked over grandma's ashes or flooded the septic tank when we met our significant other's family, but we have certainly done other things that somehow made us seem unappealing. What's funny about it is that Greg is a genuinely nice guy. He loves Pam and treats her well. It is only his desire to make a superior impression that causes his downfall. Rather than own up to his mistakes, Greg tries to cover them up, which only makes them worse. Personal humiliation has long been a staple of comedy; everybody has surely gone through it at some point. The key to making it work is making it identifiable. (There's a scene in which Greg and Jack are going for a car ride. Greg, fumbling to connect with his girlfriend's father, begins asking inane questions about the car. I've had that conversation.)

DeNiro and Stiller are a wonderful combination. DeNiro is, of course, one of the most intimidating actors working today. His body language and mannerisms are capable of suggesting great menace, even when used comedically. Stiller, meanwhile, rivals Hugh Grant in mastery of stumbling. He's brilliant at saying something dumb, backtracking, and replacing it with something dumber. Together, they create a comic edginess as Greg digs his hole ever deeper and Jack tauntingly pushes him into it.

In some ways, the picture is predictable. Whenever Jack sets down a rule (i.e. "Don't flush that toilet, whatever you do."), you know Greg is going to break it. When Kevin hand-carves a lavish wooden altar for Debbie's wedding, you sense that it won't be in pristine condition for long. Those kinds of set-ups are obvious, but rather than paying them off obviously, the screenplay sometimes goes for the obvious first, then adds a second, unexpected payoff. It also builds on top of each new disaster, making the circumstances more dire for Greg. Of course, the screenplay will eventually get him out of his predicament. It's not totally fresh, but it works in context.

Meet the Parents is a classic example of comic desperation. Greg Focker simply wants his girlfriend's parents to like him. He will go to any length to make that happen. In their own way, Jack and Dina are desperate too. They don't want to like the man who may take their daughter away. It's a case where either everyone will win or everyone will lose. Watching it all play out is a lot of fun.

( out of four)

Meet the Parents is rated PG-13 for sexual content, drug references, and language. The running time is 1 hour and 43 minutes.