The Squid and the Whale
Directed by: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Owen Kline, Jesse Eisenberg
Written: May 3, 2007
The first line of "The Squid and the Whale," spoken by 12-year-old Frank Berkman (Owen Kline), is basically a map for the rest of the movie: "Mom and me versus you and Dad." Divorce has hit the Berkman family, and the two children, Frank and 16-year-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg), are caught in the middle. With each revelation of their parent's imperfections, they both pick a side of the fight to be on. The film focuses on how the children deal with their parents, Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan (Laura Linney), arguing and how they grow up in the environment presented to them. It's an incredibly black comedy filled with cringe-inducing laughs and moments of utter sorrow and pity. And in the end there's no corny sense of closure, but rather a beginning to an end, with the first step of realizing the root of the problem.
It's impossible to blame one parent or the other for the demise of the family. On the surface, it would appear that it's Joan's fault. After all, she had been having affairs with various men for four years. But we later on learn what kind of a husband Bernard was, that he wouldn't even cook dinner when his wife was sick until she forced him to do so, and that almost seems to justify her actions. We see what kind of people these two are, and by the end we wonder how they ever got together in the first place. Both seem to live in a world filled with narcissm and what-might-have-beens. Jeff Daniels gives a career-best performance as the deadpanned, beaten down, misanthropic Bernard. Laura Linney is on top of her game as well, not being melodramatic when a lesser actor would have probably done so in many key moments of the film.
Frank sides with his mother, and immediately rebels against all that Bernard has put in place for him. He becomes content in being a "philistine" and expresses a desire to be a tennis coach at a local gym for the rest of his life, rather than the intellectual that Bernard is and Walt is becoming. After learning about Joan's affairs, Frank begins what may be one of the most bizarre lessons in sexuality in all of film. He also discovers masturbation, and spends his time letting people know about it or drinking beer in his room. Frank matures, however, coming around with a sense of responsibility to his family, and after running away from Bernard, both figuratively and literally, he respects the situation of the others involved enough to admit his mistakes and tell Joan, "It's Dad's night." Owen Kline, son of Academy Award-winner Kevin Kline and Marty's Female Fantasy-member Phoebe Cates, does a terrific job in portraying the angst that his character feels and immediately commands our attention whenever he's on screen. How he responds to many of the situations presented to him provides for many of the films funnier moments.
Yet the one who is most affected, the character that goes through the biggest arch is Walt. He immediately denounces all things Joan and leaps to his dad's side, who he idolizes like most children would. He believes his once acclaimed author of a father is a genius, and goes so far as to steal Bernard's opinions on films and books word for word without even bothering to watch or read them for himself. He becomes so accustomed to stealing words from Bernard that he lets it seep into his own life, as he attempts to pass of Pink Floyd's "Hey You" as an original song at a school talent show. He also begins to act like Bernard in his treatment of the women he cares about in his life, most notably his girlfriend, Sophie. With Bernard urging him to sleep with a lot of women before he finally settles down because it's what he should have done as a youth, Walt overlooks the great thing he has with Sophie and dumps her essentially because he feels it'd be going against his father's words of wisdom. It is only when he discovers his father forcing himself upon one of his writing students (Anna Paquin) that his claims that Joan is a 'whore' for her affairs are rendered futile. He begins to question how he's treated his mother, which up to that point had been cold and mean-spirited, while at the same time see that Bernard's word is not infallible. Jesse Eisenberg does an interesting job with the part, seemingly so numb that any sign of expression other than blandness instantly has us asking for more.
Walt tells a psychiatrist of a fond memory in his childhood: Joan and he would cut out of boring parties to watch Robin Hood and go to the Museum of Natural History to look at all the animal displays. At the Museum, young Walt would always be afraid of the squid and the whale display, he could never look at it without covering his face with his hands. During his evening bath that Joan would describe what it had looked, and while he'd still be scared he'd taken comfort in his mother relaying it to him. When asked where his father was during all this, Walt couldn't answer. "Upstairs, maybe?" With this realization brought to mind, he rushes to the Museum and finally faces the display without covering his eyes. It's fair to say he has matured enough to finally see what was right there in front of him for a long time – in more ways than one.
05-03-2007, 05:54 PM
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