MOVIE REVIEWS
The Squid and the Whale
Amichai Greene
The Squid and the Whale has, if nothing else, cements writer/director Noah Baumbach in the new pantheon of indie film auteurs. His previous films, Kicking and Screaming, Highball, and Mr. Jealousy each have their own cute appeal, but as a whole aren’t that remarkable or even that memorable (have you even heard of those films, let alone seen them? I thought not). With the Squid and the Whale, Baumbach finally arrives.
One reason this film succeeds in a way his previous had not is the liberal influence of Wes Anderson. Having worked with him on The Life Aquatic (Baumbach co-wrote the film with Anderson) Baumbach applies the same sort of great deadpan quirky quiet comic beats for which Anderson is loved.
The story is quite simple, and to a great extent (admitted by Baumbach himself) autobiographical. The film takes place in Brooklyn in the mid eighties and revolves around a family that is slowly falling apart. The movie starts off strong getting us right into the characters lives and family dynamic through a game of tennis; husband on one side, wife on the other, the two children playing with their favorite parent. From there we follow the family and witness all their quirks (of which there are many) and failings. This is highlighted best through the performance of Jeff Daniels as Bernard Berkman – the would be patriarch of the family. He is a writing professor at a local college and an author whose fame and popularity is on the decline. His impotence as a writer is only multiplied by the fact that his wife’s (played by the always captivating Laura Linney) literary accomplishments are on the rise.
Both Daniels and Linney take us through the heartbreak that is a divorce; Linney much more subdued and sad, while Daniels takes us through an arrogant romp that is a mid-life crisis (complete with an affair with one of his students). Filled with pretentiousness, boorishness, and intellectual snobbery, he acts like a teenager, filling his son’s (as played by Jesse Eisenberg) head with bad advice in the realm of love and relationships. Though a jerk, and a snob, Daniels could have just played the role as a caricature, but instead he infuses a sincerity, a desperation to Bernard that humanizes even his most annoying traits where we find that we’re rooting for him despite ourselves.
The children are a whole other sort of emotional train wreck. The eldest, Eisenberg, is right in the middle of high school and dotes on every word his father says (to the extent of parroting it back to anyone else who’ll listen), all the while pretending he is the author of the song “Hey You” by Pink Floyd. The younger child as played by Owen Kline (son of real life actor Kevin Kline) has chosen his mother over his father, and has an odd and disturbing habit of masturbating in public and wiping the semen on his surroundings.
The story ambles forward focusing on the Husband-Wife relationship, touching on the children’s lives almost as sub plots. Unfortunately, the film loses its focus when the story hones in on Eisenberg’s character in the third act leaving many of the other plot threads ultimately unresolved. Eisenberg is more than capable of carrying a film but in this case his potential lead is overshadowed by the amazing performances of both Jeff Daniels, and Laura Linney. Following Eisenberg to the end ultimately leads us to the denouement that explains the title but at the same time leaves us feeling very unsatisfied. Instead of deciding whether this film should be about the parents or the children Baumbach has tried to make it about both, giving the plot a drifting and aimless sensation.
It is a quirky tale, the type that the indie crowd loves, and most every college film student will be attending. It is a funny, sad, and touching movie that falls short of the potential so obvious in the beginning. It won’t be remembered as a great movie, but it will be remembered as the film that launched Noah Baumbach from obscurity to the next darling of independent cinema.
