powermandan The Squid and The Whale is a very misleading title since the film has nothing to do with sea creatures. Instead, it is about the impact of family decisions. The root of of it all is a divorce between Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney. Jesse Eisenberg co-stars in one of his breakout roles as their teenage son, Walt. Although an odd film, it is one to savour. Taking place in Brooklyn in 1986, Jeff Daniels plays a college professor whose writing career on the side has not been well. Laura Linney is his very unhappy wife. They have been married for about 16 years and have been miserable the whole time. Both do their best to make it work for the kids' sake, but don't want to continue the lies and misery. One morning, Daniels tells both his sons to come straight home from school because they are having a very important family meeting. He doesn't say what, which makes both Walt and Frank nervous the whole day at school. We get a brief montage of both sons disconnected from the world as they await what their parents could possibly say. The montage is brief and Daniels' announcement is brief, but it leaves an impact on the viewer of how the littlest things can impact children.They announce they are getting divorced and will have shared custody. Both children are devastated. We are too. It is such an odd feel when Daniels moves out and the kids try to adjust to a new lifestyle. We feel just like the kids. Walt learns some secrets about his parents' past and decides to live with dad full time, while Frank wants to spend more time with his mother. Mom starts dating Frank's tennis coach (William Baldwin) and dad has an affair with one of his students (Anna Paquin) who temporarily moves in with him. It's weird seeing your parents date. But Walt and Frank have troubles of their own. Walt is having girl troubles, ultimately because of his parents' rocky marriage, and claims to have written "Hey You" by Pink Floyd. Frank wants to grow up faster, so he sneaks booze and masterbates to a cutout of a woman's hips. Would this all have happened if their parents had a good marriage? The movie noticeably was made with a really low budget. And at 81 minutes no less. It did not need to be long. The shortness and low-budget gave the audience the intimacy to relate to the characters. They seem alive and the movie itself has so much humanity in it.

Irishchatter I thought the movie was pretty sad that we realise the parents (Daniels and Linney) split up and the fact, their boys were affected by this. I was really alarmed when Owen Kline's character was drinking alcohol at his young age because of this, I couldn't get over that they didn't suspect him getting a heart attack, not Jeff Daniels character as the father! It does reflect on some children who experience family breakdowns and trying to cope around the situation. I have to admit, there were some scenes seeing the boy Frank drinking alcohol, was very hard to watch. The movie was also shocking as well like, I didn't honestly expect to see Anna Paquin involved on this! I only found out that herself and Daniels acted again on this for the first time since "Fly Away Home" 10 years earlier. It was surreal that Paquin kissed Daniels and I still thought of them as film dad/daughter. They were a pretty good couple anyway so Im not complaining here lol! Although there was some sad and funny moments in this film, it was actually quite good! I give this movie a rating of 8/10!

Gabriel Baumbach's The Squid And The Whale is a film that's dripping with a veneer of intellectualism. A product of such masses of taste and culture, that it immediately feels obtrusive. It would be easy to receive the picture as a study of the intellectual, but this is merely a framework for some larger concepts.Baumbach borrows Wes Anderson's (specifically, The Royal Tennenbaums) quiet absurdity, and Harmony Korine's subtle indifference, to paint an intricate look at some very interesting characters. One can a find a greatly performed, fantastic cast here, with some sparkling chemistry, assisted in no small measure by the riveting, energetic script. The film uses its rather standard premise: a family separation, to examine the plight of the individual. Barnard is a stuffy, arrogant, self proclaimed intelligentsia who cannot peer beyond the strictures of his own ideas. His wife (whom I forget the name of at this juncture) is the opposite. Free spirited, anti-misanthropic, and commercially successful. Their children represent mixtures of themselves, caught in the middle between two often unbearable extremes. The people in this work all search for some form of substance- Eisenberg's character, for example- recognition from his father, intellectual equity, sexual perfection, and so on. One of my main complaints, however, is directed at the younger brother, who appears to be struck into an early version of some subverted adulthood. Many of his scenes seem slightly... how can one put it, strange and incomprehensible for the sake of it?Technically, the film is unimpressive, but not offensively so. Construction is pretty minimalist, with an attention to semi-long takes and theatrical whip pans. Nonetheless, the sequences are usually lit in a very warm, pleasant manner, illuminating some gorgeous sets and lovely colours. The era of 1986 is more or less useless, but appropriately subtle (no hideous references to the Human League or Ghostbusters.) The soundtrack, too, is damn great. Ultimately the film comes off as effortless: a confident, passionate portrayal of some very strong characters. Occasionally, the piece gets too caught up in them, discarding some of the supporting roles for caricatures (proving the dismissive Barnard right in most cases, which strikes me as contradictory) and often rolling in too much of its own dry wit. Regardless, this is a solid picture, and one that captures many ambitious themes and ideas, galvanized by a fascinating series of characters.

guy-bellinger Divorce among academics has nothing to envy separation among the working class. Noah Baumbach, the writer-director of « The Squid and the Whale », knows it for a fact, he who, as a teenager (and along with his younger brother), found himself trapped in the middle of parental separation chaos. But painful as the ordeal was, it has at least had a happy result : its talented dramatization by one of its victims, Noah Baumbach in person. Indeed, speaking from experience, his film cannot but engage audiences, since divorce is an experience shared by everybody, whether directly or indirectly. On condition, however, of not falling into banality, a pitfall the director skilfully avoids by resorting to two effective devices ; firstly by using humor (caustic if need be) to sift through the situation, secondly, in having the story told by the two sons (one still a child), not by the adults. The result is a few memorable scenes, performed by excellent actors, young or less young, among whom Jeff Daniels (amazing as the vain, embittered father) ; Laura Linney (who manages to give depth to the imperfect but loving mother she embodies) and, excellent as the two sons, Jesse Eisenberg (at the beginning of his rise to stardom) and Owen Kline (good seed makes a good crop !). All in all, a basically serious but really funny comedy of manners, acid but slightly sweetened by a pinch of empathy, on what undermines married and family life, namely selfishness, conceit, thoughtlessness, to put it briefly and to paraphrase Kundera, the unbearable lightness of beings supposed to be the creme de la creme of intellectual élite.