The Squid
and the Whale (**1/2)
review by Jon
Waterman
What happens when a couple married with children stop being
polite and start being real? You get “The Squid and the
Whale,” a look at divorce from four familial angles all
wrapped up into one hour and a half movie. Who maintains the
most composure? Whose destructive streak wreaks the most havoc?
Can they possibly pull some semblance of dignity and compromise
out of their hat in order to make this thing work? Or is the
bitterness and angst too much to overcome? Will it be funny
as planned?
When it was first mentioned in the film that the two quarrelling
parents were writers, I was hoping “The Squid and the
Whale” referred to some metaphorical battle between two
giant literary monsters: Moby Dick and the giant squid from
20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. Sounds pretty good, right? Yeah,
but that would require some subtlety on the part of writer/director
Noah Baumbach, and I think he’d rather shove everything
right in your face and make you eat it. Call me disappointed.
Or Jon. Whichever.
Nothing about the movie really shined for me. Maybe I had
nothing to connect to. Maybe it’s because my parents
are still happily married (at least I assume they’re
happy). Maybe I wish the two brothers were more like “Pete & Pete.” Maybe
I was turned off by the WASPish lack of real emotional content,
since the characters tended to mask reality only providing
us with a few short spurts where they dropped the act. Maybe
I just didn’t see the humor in such mundane scenes such
as the opening tennis game. If you want the funniest, bittersweet
tennis match on film, watch “The Royal Tenenbaums” (the
great Wes Anderson film made before he got bogged down by Baumbach).
To its credit, the film is surprisingly honest. This could
actually be a fault as well. You don’t see such candid
talk and banter from people in real life, even when dealing
with such devastating circumstances. Everything about everyone’s
personal lives is out in the open for all to know and comment
on with their stone face. Since when do you see a family that
actually tells each other everything like this? It’s
unnatural. I would think people in this family would keep a
larger amount secret, due to the fact that the father harshly
scrutinizes everything as a form of empowerment in his dissolving
world.
Which brings me to the cast. All of the actors hold their
own. None of them were outstanding, and I found the smallest
kid, the masturbation smearing pre-teen Frank (played by Owen
Kline) pretty annoying at times. It was understandable, but
still grating in a bad way. He’s young. He’ll bounce
back. They even have a Baldwin brother in here. No, not the
popular one. No, not the other one. Yeah. That one. He’s
tolerable. But I think the real star of the picture is Jeff
Daniel’s (Bernard) beard. I think that massive piece
of facial fur speaks larger volumes about his character and
personality than anything he said on screen.
This is like a mid-life crisis movie from the eyes of the
kids. And that perspective doesn’t really lend to audience
understanding. The movie actually isn’t as harsh as “The
Ice Storm,” but it isn’t as good, either. This
is the kind of story that needs the deep introspection and
first-person analysis that a novel can provide. As a film,
despite its honesty and straightforwardness, it’s lacking
the emotional punch that can really drive the whole thing home.
respond to jon@filmbrats.com
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