Review of The Squid and the Whale (2005) by Dave C — 21 Jan 2010

The Squid and the Whale is equal parts dark, unsettling, hilarious, and touching. It's a unique and honest portrait of a family being affected by a divorce, directed brilliantly by Noah Baumbach.

This movie connected with me in a strange way. Not because my parents are out of touch literary scholars who got divorced when I was 16, but because I lived in Park Slope, and one of the albums I connect with living there is Pink Floyd's The Wall. This album, and notably the song Hey You, play a large part in the movie, mainly revolving around Walt, played terrifically by Jesse Eisenberg. Watching this brought me right back to 222 15th street, the brownstones, and Prospect Park.

The movie also connected with me because of how insanely honest it is. I believed all of these characters' interactions almost immediately. There was no setup needed. It opens with the family playing a doubles match of tennis, and it tells us everything we need to know about all of them right from the onset with very minimal dialogue. Visual storytelling at its finest.

It's a hard film to watch. The subject matter is incredibly difficult, and it has a lot of very dark and unsettling scenes. The darkness is punctuated with biting wit and hilarious moments that feel out of place, but somehow fit. It's very unique, and every time I laughed, I felt a little dirty because of how heartbreaking everything else is.

The two parents, played by Jeff Daniels (Bernard) and Laura Linney (Joan) are two pretty awful parents. Daniels' character much more so than Linney's, but together they offend, annoy, and repulse you. They're both self-absorbed with their own needs and wants, but Bert takes things to new extremes. Don't want to give much more away, but I'll just say that all four members of this family are fascinating, but none more than Bernard, who Jeff Daniels plays absolutely flawlessly.

This is some powerful stuff, people. It's one of the rawest showcases of a troubled family that I've ever seen. All of the characters are deeply flawed, and the kids in particular are deeply flawed because of how self-absorbed and out of touch their parents are. They're so engrossed in their own worlds that they don't realize that the song their son claims to have written is a famous Pink Floyd song!

This movie is brilliant. Just go see it.