The Squid and the Whale ***** (imdb)
I would like to start this review with a spoiler. If youre thinking of renting this movies because your grandma made you watch Jaques Coustau with her because she thought he was sexy and you feel like reminiscing by watching a movie about the Ocean's fascinanting sealife dont watch this movie.Its not about that and its not about Seafood either.This movie is about the bitter divorce of the Bekermanns two New yorker Intelectuals with competing egos that find themselves with their kids taking sides. At first i thought that the movie was caught in that Indie limbo where everybody thinks that Napoleon Dynamite is fashion icon and kids listen to the Velvet Underground in ther record players . But its not. It's set in theBrooklyn of the 80's. That to me made the movie inmediatly darn cool but its not where the strenght of the feature lies .
This movie has an unveliable cast: Jeff Daniels as the Patriarch ,Laura Linney as the Mother, Jesse Eisenberg of Roger Dodger fame, as Walt the oldest and Newcomer Owen Kline as Frank ,the youngest and i have to mention William Baldwin, this should be his Trantino style comeback he plays Ivan an ex tennis pro that among other eccentricities calls everyone "my brother".
Its the young ones who carrie the weight of the Movie. The way the sons deal with the divorce is by taking sides, Walt with the dad and Frank with the Mum.
These are no ordinary parents ergo no ordinary kids specially in the way they act out.
Frank decides to start drinking (we are talking about a nine year old) and Walt tries to emulate his father's condescending intelectual superiority with his school mates and tries to pass a pink floyd song as his own during a talent show.
This might seem far out on paper but the truth its that most of this movie feels painfully real.
Daniels makes his Character, a once great writer turned washed out University professor unable to repeat his early succes, his own. He is pompous and bitter but also loving and most definetely human. On the other hand Linney is more restrained in her complexity, she is constantly blamed by Walt for the failure of her Marriage and is unable of dealing with him.
The Squid and the whale was based on the directors childhood and shares subject matters with movies like Moonlight mile and the royal tenembaums and like them it has an undeniable indie feel to it, but otherwise its not trying to hard to earn its cred. Daniels made this one a monster on its own and is overall a terrific film.
i thought your review was a little too detailed. you described the whole movie to the pit.... but i like the mr hat concept keep up the cool blog
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9:30 AM