'Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost' review: Ben Stiller's deeply personal documentary

WHAT IT'S ABOUT Ben Stiller turns the sad ritual of clearing out his late parents' Manhattan apartment to prepare it for sale into a documentary about the remarkable lives and brilliant comedic partnership of Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara.

"Stiller & Meara: Nothing Is Lost" benefits from Jerry Stiller's apparent compulsion to film, record or otherwise document just about everything in his life, from early love letters he exchanged with Meara, to home movies of little Ben and his older sister, Amy, to rehearsals of the Stiller and Meara duo's comedy routines for "The Ed Sullivan Show," and quite a bit more.

The elder Stiller — best known these days for being the funniest part of "Seinfeld" as Frank Costanza, George's manic father — died in 2020. Meara, not just a terrific comedian but an accomplished and Tony-nominated actor, died in 2015.

MY SAY A straightforward documentary about Jerry Stiller and Anne Meara, one that mixed vintage clips with talking head reflections, would have plenty of appeal, simply because they were so funny and so smart and had such interesting lives and careers.

"Stiller & Meara" has a good amount of that. It's an excellent introduction to these comedy legends. But if that were all it was, it could've been made by anyone.

Ben Stiller goes in a different direction. The power of his documentary lies in the ways in which he makes it personal and relatable.

It's the story of a man grappling with the enormous weight of the death of his parents, with the burden of having to say goodbye, and with the thoughts, fears and reflections that emerge along with this new normal. Anyone who has experienced this sort of loss or anything like it will recognize so much of "Stiller & Meara."

Ben Stiller might be one of the biggest movie stars in the world, his parents might have been show business icons, but he strips all of that away. He opens himself up in a way that major celebrities rarely if ever seem to do. His wife, Christine Taylor, and their children, appear on-screen to talk about their own lives, and how the Stiller-Meara legacy lives on within them. He is candid about experiencing emotionally difficult periods himself.

"Stiller & Meara," then, becomes a movie about family and legacy and memory, about how our perceptions of our loved ones conform and conflict with their realities, and about how they live on in our minds and hearts. That's where the picture's subtitle, "Nothing Is Lost," comes from, and that's why the movie means as much as it does.

When Ben Stiller reads one of Jerry and Anne's newly discovered love letters to his sister, they're no different from any of us, overjoyed and deeply moved to learn something new and revelatory about their parents even after they're no longer around.

BOTTOM LINE A deeply personal documentary about show business icons. Don't miss it.