After separating from his wife, unemployed Danny Meyerowitz moves in with his father, Harold, a retired
Bard College art professor and sculptor, and his fourth wife, Maureen, a pleasant but foggy hippie. Jean is his sister, and they have a younger half-brother, Matthew. Danny is close to his daughter, Eliza, a freshman film student at Bard. Eliza sends one of her sexually provocative films to the family, discomforting them. Some of Harold's work has been selected as part of a faculty group show at Bard, but he refuses to be part of a group show. Danny and Harold attend the
MoMA retrospective of a friend and contemporary of Harold's, the successful L.J. Shapiro. There, neither father nor son feels comfortable; Harold feels that the art world has forgotten him, and chooses to literally run away down the street. Danny meets Shapiro's daughter, single mother Loretta, but is forced to leave to chase after Harold. Harold's younger son, Matthew, a successful financial advisor to rock stars on the West Coast in Los Angeles, is in New York on business, and meets Harold for lunch with an accountant friend. Matthew discusses raising his young son after separating from his wife, neither of whom Harold know. They try to convince Harold to sell his Manhattan home and its sculpture. Harold tells them that the decision to sell the house is a private family decision, and stalks out. At a third restaurant, he criticizes the prices, but orders lavishly when Matthew says he will pay. During lunch at the restaurant, Harold feels offended by the arrogant manner of another patron, and gets Matthew to chase him when he alleges that the patron swapped jackets with him. Although mistaken, father and son bond slightly in self-righteous indignation. That evening, they pay a visit to Matthew's mother and Harold's second wife, Julia, who has since married a man named Cody, a wealthy philistine. She tells them that she is sorry that she was not a better mother to Danny and Jean; her directness makes them uncomfortable, and they are eager to leave. Matthew resents Harold for preferring a life of art over money. "I beat you!", he screams at his father's departing Volvo. Harold is diagnosed with a
chronic subdural hematoma. He enters the hospital, where, as the days pass, his children learn to manage his care, after first leaning on Harold's doctor and nurse to do it. Matthew and Maureen agree to sell the house that the latter grew up in without consulting anyone else in the family. Outside the hospital, Jean tells her brothers that Harold's friend Paul, who happens to be visiting at the moment, exposed himself and masturbated in front of her when she was a teenager. Upset with the revelation, Matthew and Danny damage Paul's car with mounting exhilaration. Jean expresses her disappointment in her brothers, having wanted someone to just listen to her instead of doing such damage without her consent. At Bard, representing their father at the faculty group show, Matthew and Danny argue over Eliza drinking alcohol, which turns into a fight about Harold's favoritism of Matthew and Matthew's estrangement from the rest of the family. Later, bloody and crying, Matthew ends up breaking down emotionally during his speech as he realizes he'll never achieve closure with Harold if he dies now. Danny undergoes surgery for his persistent limp, something his daughter and siblings had urged him to seek treatment for. As Harold convalesces at Maureen's place in the country (the townhouse was sold, despite Matthew's change of heart), it dawns on Matthew and Harold that Harold's favorite sculpture, titled "Matthew", a lifelong object of resentment for Danny and Jean, was likely based on his feelings for young Danny. Danny, who until now has been solicitous toward his father, refuses to care for him while Maureen is away, and accepts his brother's offer of a trip to California, but he forgives him for his failures as a dad. On the way to the flight, he meets Loretta, now single, and she suggests that they go together to the screening of a film that Eliza has made. In the basement of
The Whitney, Eliza uncovers her grandfather's sculpture, long believed to have been lost. == Cast ==