Tension generates ‘Parents’ laughs > Romantic comedy ‘Tao of Steve’ on Railroad Square’s Waterville screen

MEET THE PARENTS, directed by Jay Roach, written by Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg, based on a story by Greg Slienna and Mary Ruth Clarke. 105 minutes. Rated PG-13.

The new Jay Roach comedy, “Meet the Parents,” follows the unfortunately named Greg Focker (Ben Stiller), a klutzy male nurse from Chicago who falls in love with Pam Byrnes (Teri Polo), nearly proposes to her in a rush of affection, but stops just short of doing so when it occurs to him that he should first get permission from Pam’s father.

As sweet and as endearing as that is, Greg’s experience proves anything but when he and Pam fly to Long Island to spend a weekend at her parents’ home.

There, as the Byrneses prepare to marry off their other daughter, Debbie (Nicole DeHuff), we meet Pam’s parents – her neurotic mother, Dina (Blythe Danner), and her ruthless, intense and fiercely overprotective father, Jack, a grimacing WASP played with sneering bravado by Robert De Niro.

This time out, De Niro has toned down the “You laughin’ at me?” shtick he displayed in “Analyze This,” and the result is a funnier, more grounded performance that balances “Parents”‘ frequent moments of lunacy with a softer punch.

Well, a slightly softer punch. “Meet the Parents” is, after all, a comedy of manners where one can learn all the tricks of how to milk a cat, how to potty train a cat, and, perhaps more refreshing, how one’s mother’s ashes can be used as a smart and sudden substitute for kitty litter.

Since the film comes from Roach, whose “Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery” and its hilarious sequel, “The Spy Who Shagged Me,” delighted in exposing the baser side of human behavior, none of its raunch comes as a surprise. But what does surprise is how unforced its comedy is given the tight, often predictable demands of its narrow plot.

Roach and his screenwriters, Jim Herzfeld and John Hamburg, wisely keep the tension high between Greg and Jack, never skirting away from it to get an easy laugh from an easy joke. Instead, the humor comes from this tension and, by extension, from the film’s outlandish situations – such as when Greg, who’s Jewish, is asked to say grace at the dinner table, or when it occurs to Jack that if his daughter should marry Greg, whom he considers a worthless bum, her full married name would be Pam Martha Focker.

And that, in this funny film, is just unacceptable.

Grade: B+

THE TAO OF STEVE, directed by Jenniphr Goodman, written by Duncan North with Greer and Jenniphr Goodman. 90 minutes. Rated R. Now playing, Railroad Square Cinema, Waterville.

Overweight male slackers in desperate need of a date should pay attention to Jenniphr Goodman’s “The Tao of Steve,” a romantic comedy that offers three helpful dating rules for those longing to be a chick magnet.

Rule 1: “Eliminate your desires. If you’re out with a girl and you’re thinking about [having sex], you’re finished. A woman can smell an agenda.”

Rule 2: “You have to do something excellent in her presence, therefore proving your sexual worthiness.”

Rule 3: “After you eliminate desire – and after you’ve proved your excellence – you must retreat.”

Armed with these rules, which are a peculiar combination of the philosophies of Lao Tzu, German philosopher Martin Heidegger and comedian Groucho Marx – and which, we’re told, can turn ordinary Joes into charismatic Steve McQueens – one should be as irresistible as our unlikely hero, Dex (Donal Logue), whose pendulous belly, intentionally reminiscent of Buddha’s, is the first thing one sees as the film opens.

About that belly – if it isn’t the star of the film, it comes close. Throughout, Goodman keeps her camera trained on it as Dex himself pats and rubs it. It’s meant to be in jarring contrast to what Dex used to be – the big man on campus – and it is, but one also senses that Dex uses it as a device to keep real love at bay, something that’s challenged when he meets and falls hard for Syd (Greer Goodman), a smart, beautiful woman immune to the rules Dex has lived by for years.

Much of the film’s substantial charm comes from Logue, who won a special jury prize at the 2000 Sundance Film Festival for his performance (initially, he’s like a present-day cherub crossed with a clown). But as the film deepens into its issues of love and honesty, right vs. wrong, the tone changes. These rules, as foolproof as they may be, have serious ramifications, which Goodman explores to a satisfying – if predictable – ending.

Grade: B+

Christopher Smith is the Bangor Daily News film critic. His reviews appear Monday and Thursday in the NEWS, and Tuesday and Thursday on “NEWS CENTER at 5:30” on WLBZ 2 and WCSH 6.