The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) (2017)
Directed by Noah Baumbach
No — The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is not woke, scoring 9 out of 100 on our wokeness meter.
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) concerns a white Manhattan family of artists and academics, their resentments, their divorces, and their father's stubborn decline.
Consciousness Markers
Jean's monologue about being sexually exposed to as a teenager and her frustration that her brothers retaliated without her consent carries a genuine feminist beat about listening to women. Otherwise the film is a conventional family drama centered on men.
There is a mild art-versus-commerce tension, with Harold scorning money in favor of art and Cody dismissed as a 'wealthy philistine,' but this is character texture rather than an anti-capitalist thesis.
Baumbach's script observes its characters with dry wit rather than moral instruction; there is no preachy messaging directed at the audience.
The ensemble is almost entirely white, with no casting choices made to signal demographic representation. Diversity is neither a goal nor a feature of the film.
There are no LGBTQ+ characters, relationships, or themes anywhere in the narrative.
Race is entirely absent as a subject; the film concerns a privileged white Manhattan artistic family with no racial consciousness whatsoever.
No environmental or climate themes appear in the film.
Danny's limp and surgery are treated as a medical/character detail, not as a body-positivity statement.
No neurodivergent characters or themes are present.
The film is a fictional family drama with no historical revisionism of any kind.
Why it received this score
The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) concerns a white Manhattan family of artists and academics, their resentments, their divorces, and their father's stubborn decline. Noah Baumbach observes them with the patience of a man cataloguing expensive furniture. The cast is almost entirely white, and the film makes no effort to signal demographic representation. Race does not enter the frame as a subject. Neither does queerness, climate anxiety, or any other contemporary cause. This is not a failure of nerve. It is simply not that kind of movie. The characters are privileged, self-absorbed, and emotionally stunted, which is the point.
There is a feminist flicker in Jean's monologue. She describes being exposed to as a teenager by her father's friend, then expresses disappointment that her brothers damaged his car without her consent. The scene understands that listening to women matters more than avenging them. That beat lands. Elsewhere the film belongs to men and their father wounds. The art-versus-money tension gives Harold a chance to scorn commerce and dismiss Cody as a wealthy philistine, but this is character texture, not an anti-capitalist thesis. Danny's limp and surgery are medical details. No body-positivity statement is made. No neurodivergent characters appear. The script has no interest in diagnosing anyone.
Baumbach's dialogue is dry, funny, and observational. It does not lecture. The film offers no moral instruction to the audience, no historical revision, no climate sermon, no lesson on identity. It is a fictional family drama about narcissism and disappointment. Its progressive sensibilities are incidental, small, and mostly confined to one scene about a woman wanting to be heard. The rest is a well-made, well-acted study of people who cannot stop talking about themselves. As a cultural artifact, it belongs to an earlier mode of American independent cinema, a mode that assumed white upper-middle-class malaise was universal. It is not. But it is often very funny about it.
Analysis generated by our Consciousness Algorithm
Synopsis
An estranged family gathers together in New York for an event celebrating the artistic work of their father.
Questions about The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected)
Is The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) woke?
No — The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) is not woke, scoring 9 out of 100 on our wokeness meter. That earns it a verdict of Ultra Based.
Does The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) have any woke elements?
Very few. None of the 10 markers reaches 30, the level where a marker counts as present; the highest is Feminist Agenda at 20.
How does The Meyerowitz Stories (New and Selected) compare to other 2017 movies?
It ranks #171 of the 309 films from 2017 we've scored; their average is 19. The wokest is I Am Not Your Negro (92).
How is the Woke Score calculated?
An AI-assisted process researches the film and its reception, scores it 0–100 on ten markers, then combines those into one 0–100 Woke Score. It measures a specific set of 2020s cultural themes, not film quality.