The Squid and the Whale

Plot synopsis:
Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) is an arrogant, once-promising novelist whose career has gone into a slow decline as he spends more time teaching and less time writing. His unfaithful wife, Joan (Laura Linney), has recently begun publishing her own work to widespread acclaim, which only increases the growing tension between them. One day, Bernard and Joan tell their two sons, 16-year-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline), that they are separating, with Bernard renting a house on the other side of Prospect Park from their home in Park Slope, Brooklyn.
As the parents set up a schedule for spending time with their children, Walt and Frank can hardly imagine that things could get more combative between their parents. They do, however, as Joan begins dating Ivan (William Baldwin), Frank's tennis instructor, and Bernard starts sharing his new house with Lili (Anna Paquin), one of his students. Meanwhile, the two boys begin taking sides in the battle between their parents, with Frank siding with his mother and Walt lashing out at her.
Along with the trouble both boys exhibit verbally with their parents, they also show internal struggles and very different ways of handling the stress of their parents' divorce. Walt's most obvious cry for help is when he performs and claims to have written "Hey You" by Pink Floyd at his school's talent show. After Walt wins first place and receives praise from his family and friends, his school realizes that he did not write the song. At this point, the school calls Bernard and Joan in to discuss Walt. They all decide that Walt should see the school psychologist. Meanwhile, Frank exhibits his own internal turmoil by repeatedly masturbating at school. He also begins to drink beer and speak in a way that emulates Ivan's mannerisms.
During the meeting with the psychologist, Walt finally starts to see things more objectively, without the taint of his father's opinions. He realizes that he had been emulating Bernard's rude and arrogant behavior when he mistreats a girl he had been dating in his school Sophie (Halley Feiffer) who breaks things off with him when she finally gets fed up with his narcissism and cruel treatment of her. The psychologist asks Walt about his childhood memories and it becomes clear to Walt that his father was never really present, and that his mother was the one whom he remembers caring for him. His fondest childhood memory is when his mother would take him to see the giant squid and whale exhibit at the American Museum of Natural History; the exhibit scared him as a small child so he would look at it through his fingers whenever they went by the exhibit at the museum.
After a heated argument between Bernard and Joan over custody, Bernard collapses on the street outside their home and is taken to the hospital. Bernard asks for Walt to stay by his side, but Walt instead runs to visit the squid and whale. The film concludes with him pondering the exhibit.

Tags: dramatic, romantic, comedy, psychedelic, depressing

Review:
It certainly communicates the idea that divorce isn't easy, on either the parents or the kids, but I don't feel that it pronounces judgement on those who turn to it as an option."The Squid and the Whale" is a sad--though at times very funny--look at what divorce does to one family in 1986 New York.
No one is totally to blame, yet no one is completely innocent either in this honest and frank film.Noah Baumbach has made no secret of the fact that it is based on his own adolescent life, and it has that confessional feeling that movies in this genre frequently do.
This is Daniels' best work ever on screen and is at once, painful and a joy to behold.Laura Linney plays his wife as a woman who loves her kids unequivocally and has a zest for life that her downbeat husband no longer shares.
Noah Baumbach takes a loving (oh?) stab at his parents' divorce, brought on by the hilariously immature antics of his father, and my writing professor, the ever pompous Jonathan Baumbach (Jeff Daniels).Brooklyn College was a hotbed of activism and liberal arts when I first encountered Jonathan Baumbach (rechristened "Bernard" in the film, a sly wink at Jonathan's mentor and hero, Bernard Malamud).
The arrogance and complete lack of self awareness is perfectly captured by Daniels in his over-the-top performance which, amazingly, underplays the actual father.To call the picture patricidal is to completely miss the point; Baumbach pere is so self centered, he likely sees the film as an homage.
Factor in the performances of Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline and this may be the most well-acted movie I've seen in a couple of years.I've never enjoyed watching Daniels so much.
(Yes, Daniels is great, but Eisenberg earns a Best Supporting Actor nomination in this one!)What I enjoyed most of all is how some very, VERY delicate humor is brilliantly woven throughout this incredibly sad movie.Cheers to Noah Baumbach for putting his life on paper and letting these terrific actors tell the tale.That's it.
It's clear Bernard and Joan love their sons, but the idea of not having both parents around at the same time is devastating."The Squid and the Whale" is a film that lays bare the emotions the two boys are experiencing.
Literary autobiography with heartfelt humor.Filmmaker Noah Baumbach is back in fine form since his debut with the excellent "Kicking and Screaming" (a personal fave of mine; a "Diner" for the '90s) in this semi-autobiographical account of his family's dealing with his parent's divorce with bittersweet frankness and a heaping of witty humor.The family Berkman of Park Slope, Brooklyn circa the early 1980s, consists of author/teacher Bernard (Daniels in a career high performance that deserves an Oscar nod), literary pursuant mother Joan (Linney sublimely good) and sons Walt and Frank (Eisenberg and Kline, the latter the progeny of Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates making a Culkinian debut with surprising chops) aka Chicken and Pickle (their mom's nicknames).
The quartet is harmonious in literary pursuits and drastic life changes when the parents agree on separating sending the boys (and ultimately themselves) into an emotional tailspin.Bernard, a very sardonic critical yet loving man, is taking it very internally despite his sarcastic remarks about everything to his sons as a sounding board in his attempt to keep his boys together by a joint custody agreement with Joan by taking a fixer-upper brownstone across the park while he deals with the likelihood that his new book will never be published.
Joan's affairs are discovered shockingly by the boys - Walt the more avuncularly bitter lashing out and blaming her for not giving the marriage a chance reasoning that dad's lack of success has made her seek another shot a life of empty sex yet promise in her undiscovered writing talents (much to the resentment of Bernard); meanwhile budding tennis pro wannabe Frank, the youngest, begins to experiment with alcohol and masturbation.Added to the mix is Lili (Paquin), a female writing student of Bernard's, who has a hidden agenda when Bernard invites her to share his new home as a roommate while the boys visit every other day with mixed results.
Walt is attempting to begin a sexual awakening as well with his first girlfriend but is getting all the wrong comic advice from Bernard who is clueless with the opposite sex as he is also trying to have sex with Lili while burning over Joan who has hooked up with Frank's tennis instructor Ivan (a doofy Baldwin whose every other utterance is "Brother").Achingly funny, sharply witty and skewering with some pricelessly amusing moments including the running gag of Bernard driving his kids around the neighborhood ("my space is missing!" an apt metaphor for his listless situation) and subtle touches (Bernard reading Saul Bellow's THE VICTIM and the new home decorated with posters of films like PSYCHO and THE MOTHER AND THE WHORE and using the instrumental theme of Tangerine Dream's score to "Risky Business" during Frank's sexual awakenings!) ) bring a smile if not a burst of laughter in the unease of a family's reluctant transition that will scar them forever.Baumbach is clearly making a heartfelt valentine to his own upbringing when his parents eventually divorced during his trying teens and the affects that have rubbed off are bittersweet and universally humorous.
He has a keen touch with his actors  especially Daniels, the centerpiece character, who is brilliantly funny, touching and head-shaking misanthropic at the absurdity of his situation (at one point he says glibly with a touch of melancholy, "that's my home which I used to live inas you may know", to his son during one of their jaunts back and forth) that has echoes of his first fine role as Flap, the philandering English professor husband of the doomed Debra Winger in "Terms of Endearment", suggesting a bookend to what Flap may have become ultimately (and I'm damned if I'm not right at one point Walt is looking at his father's novel's backflap and the photo suggests a still from that film!).
Daniels has always been one of my all-time faves and a severely underrated (and underestimated actor) it's be criminal if he didn't get an Academy Award nomination.There are some very funny moments throughout with the brothers particularly Frank's stream of profanities in frustration at the tennis lessons (no doubt from his competitive father in several sequences) and Walt's stone-cold declaration that the musical piece he will be performing, Pink Floyd's "Hey You", was written by him as an original work!
By disliking (or rather disconnecting from) the characters at the outset, the audience can take a more objective, emotionless view of this dysfunctional family--much the same way the family approaches itself.So don't expect many weepy scenes where you say to yourself, "I feel exactly like that character!" Because unless you're an egotistical snob of a father who ironically swears like a common sailor at his kids, or unless you're the cluelessly devoted son who parrots everything the father says, or the passive-aggressive mother who has affairs rather than confront her marital problems, or the younger son who seems pretty cool until he inexplicably starts doing disgusting things in the library (and I mean disgusting!), then I don't think you'll immediately associate with any character in the film.
Jeff Daniels (the father) in particular plays such a satirical caricature of a horrible parent that there's no other way to interpret his character than: a clown.Something that has to be mentioned is the setting & time period of this film.
The Squid and The Whale is filmmaker Noah Baumbach's rendition of his own dealings with a family's turmoil and problems coping with a bitter divorce.That being said, this movie was absolutely awful.I rented this move after reading how deep, great and astounding a movie it was on several film critics' "top ten of the year" list.
It was predictable in the wide view, but as for the many little barbs and spears that are thrown along the way -- unless you're as bloodless and depraved as the characters in the movie, you'll never see them coming.I think, as a side note, this is the best acting Jeff Daniels has ever done.
it's just a look at a family falling apart and the parents unwilling to meet the other half-way and the negative and positive effects on the children.this is one of those movies you can watch over and over and over and always find something new and interesting in the dialog and the character each actor portrays.
A bearded Jeff Daniels and plain Laury Linney give balanced readings of their parts as a pretentious writing teacher whose days of published success fade while his wife gets a book contract and her novel is excerpted in "The New Yorker." Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline are fine as the two brothers Walt and Frank who have to deal with the colder details of joint custody while their parents are still throwing verbal barbs at each other and rumors of earlier adulteries are coming out, and issues such as who gets the cat -- and the special edition of Bellow's "The Victim" -- are as yet unresolved.
"The Squid and the Whale" is such a corrosive look at marriage and child rearing that it could inspire a backlash among parents to ban arts education, if not literacy altogether, from the schools in order to prevent their children from revenging upon them as much as writer/director Noah Baumbach does on his family, notwithstanding the usual closing disclaimer of fiction.
Last night though, I was incredibly disappointed in TSTW.Now I may be a "Phillistine" only in comparison to some that really delve into a movie about hidden meanings and "sub plot outlines", but I consider myself pretty "middle of the road" when it comes to entertainment.I guess if you have been through a divorce as a parent or child, this film may mean a bit more, otherwise, it is depressing, slow moving, and pretty disgusting whereas Character morality is concerned.I'm more disappointed that I spent the time to stay up late and watch this.All four of the primary characters have serious emotional / psychological problems that just continue to manifest themselves throughout the film.
Are you crazy?!The story of a family which is breaking apart, with the parents having joint custody over their two children, Frank and Walt, which could be the basis for an excellent film.Instead, be prepared for 80 of the most painful minutes you've spent in a theater.
Bernard (Jeff Daniels) once wrote a good novel, he claims, and aspired to literary greatness, before the winds of creativity died down, leaving the sails of his writer's vessel perpetually slack.Bernie turned to teaching creative writing to college students to put bread on the table, but at mid-life he is a bitter fellow, a man who knows that he's in the doldrums, and that he has fallen way short of his dreams.
The younger Frank ostensibly is the family member most emotionally devastated by the separation and he strongly sides with his Mom.Among other unsavory aspects of family dissolution, the harsh inequities wrought upon kids by joint custody arrangements is vividly depicted, with its attendant feeling that the kids really are in custody, because, like inmates, Walt and Frank, are shuttled around having no say at all in the matter, no control over the regular forced marches, back and forth, between two households, and all in the name of love.Writer-director Noah Baumbach's earlier screenplay, co-written with Wes Anderson, for "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," was awash in deadpan (and, I thought, also deadening) ironies.
A big problem is at the end-the Whale exhibit at the Museum of Natural History in NYC was a faded, dilapidated mess until recently when the whole Wing was updated---there is no way it looked like this in the late 60s.However a caveat: There is talk of frank sexuality, as well as activities related around sex (not the usual adult sex scenes, mind you, but different) and much verbal profanity in this film, which seemed to offend some of the older members of the audience at Talk Cinema, but not me-I felt it was totally appropriate.
*1/2 for "The Squid and the Whale."This picture has been filmed in Brooklyn, N.Y. and that's how exciting it gets!Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney, two excellent thespians, are liberal Ph.D husband and wife.
i am not a critic so i am going to say what this movie impacted on me the most.Jeff Daniels character in this movie is so intense and i didn't feel for him much until he had a conversation with his ex wife (laura linney) about a conversation he had with his dad.that moment touched me the most and made this movie one of the best i'd seen in a while (as far as independent films go.) the last reviewer already spoiled a lot from the movie but trust me, if you get a chance to see this film.
Noah Baumbach, an obvious disciple of Wes Anderson, falls into the second category.In his semi-autobiographical film, Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney star as Bernard and Joan Berkman.
This movie was highly rated by the critics, probably because of their fear of appearing to be like the shallow "philistines" Jeff Daniels' character speaks of as being unable to appreciate great literature and film.
A semi-autobiographical story of two young boys dealing with their parents' divorce in Brooklyn in the 1980s, 'The Squid And The Whale' is an incredible piece of cinema, that is true to the dictionary it follows.Noah Baumbach shows images of his life, through the eyes of his characters.
Noah Baumbach's breakthrough feature is a smartly written, aptly directed & brilliantly performed indie that cleverly combines the elements of drama & comedy into one gripping story, is filled with authentic, fully-drawn characters, and offers an honest take on divorce & how it affects everyone who is part of the family.Set in Brooklyn during the 1980s, The Squid and the Whale tells the story of two boys whose lives are turned upside down when they learn that their parents are separating and are going to share a joint custody.
And everyone from Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline & even Anna Paquin chip in with very believable performances.On an overall scale, The Squid and the Whale is crafted with extensive personal investment which is evident in the final print and happens to be as enjoyable as it is biting, thanks to skillful writing & superb direction from Baumbach as he stuffs every painful moment of his semi-autobiographical tale with clever wit to make its familial themes more accessible & relatable to the viewers without exposing them to the grimness of failed relationships..
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 !).
Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) and Joan (Laura Linney) have been married for several years and have two children: Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline).
The Squid and the Whale is the film you're looking for.Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, William Baldwin, Halley Feiffer, and Anna Paquin.
The younger brother, Frank (Owen Kline), is attached to his mother but also loves Walt, and the stress of the marriage's break-up and subsequent family breakdown leave him with embittered feelings toward everyone, including himself; he starts drinking beer and whiskey, and comparing his looks to his mother.It is the young boys who really pulled this movie up to a higher standing that it could ever hope to be and the script helped them out, making their portrayals relatively interesting to watch.
How this dysfunctional family unit copes with the new way of life is the means to the end of the film.While each of the actors gives career defining performances (even the young boys are superb) the film leaves us with a somewhat distant feeling: as well as these characters is each described and enacted it is very difficult to like or identify with any of them, as they are each self-centered and narrow minded people making them difficult to enjoy.
"The Squid and the Whale" (2005), written and directed by Noah Baumbach, is a painful look at a family torn apart by divorce.Jeff Daniels is outstanding as Bernard Berkman, the husband of Joan (Laura Linney), and father of Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline).
This has to do with two things: the well written screenplay and the great performances (Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, etc.).My only complaint has to do with one classic song that is played constantly throughout the film.
Bernard (Jeff Daniels) being the famous writer and his ex Joan (Laura Linney) attempting to be one, are dysfunctional (to put it in polite terms), which then spreads down into the herd.Although Baumbach mostly tries to focus on Walt (played with a wealth of blank-face acting by Kline, usually working to his advantage), it is mostly a film about the family, and how things unfold in relationship terms for everyone (or with Frank the disturbing lack thereof).
Adding to this style on top of the great acting from Daniels and Linney (especially Daniels though, the best he's done in years), is a kind of on-the-fly camera style ala the French new-wave, and music akin to the Wes Anderson style (a little folky, indie, even for its 80's setting).But in the end what made the Squid and the Whale work for me is that somehow Baumbach makes these spiteful, inert, hurting, amusing, and trying-to-deal people watchable, even interesting.