Post by Pulpmariachi on Dec 19, 2005 0:08:59 GMT -5
SPOILERS MAY BE PRESENT
If this movie had come out a year or so ago I probably would have lost it.
It really rang close to home. For me.
The Squid and the Whale is the story of a couple who have been married for 17 years, going through a divorce and how it impacts them and their kids and just the overall situation.
Jeff Daniels is a washed-up novelist/professor, just moved out of his house across The Park in New York City. This all takes place in the 80s by the way. He is coping with jealousy for his wife who has recently started writing. She has gotten an article published and is having a novel about to be released, complete with an excerpt of in The New Yorker. Their two sons basically choose sides after (and even before) the divorce. Jesse Eisenberg looks up to his father who he sees as the source of all wisdom and intelligence and whathaveyou. Owen Kline is his younger brother who pretty much likes his mother best.
Divorces are hard things to go through. I remember. It fucking sucked. Parents are constantly bitching at each other (and they do so here) and the kids are probably becoming psycologically unsound (Owen Klien's character takes up masturbation and has taken to wiping his jism all over library books and lockers). People become blindsighted to a person, only focusing on the NEGATIVE.
It's really sad.
So the movie is pretty much about that. Among other things. Jesse whateverhislastnameis's character gets a girlfriend and continues to ask his father for some advice about how to handle women, always getting the same response, "It's probably not best to get tied down at your age."
Laura Linney is writing and dating.
The youngest is, as mentioned before, masturbating in libraries.
Jeff Daniels is starting to have an affair with one of his doting students (played by Anna Paquin).
The film is directed by Noah Baumbach who you might remember (or at least this is what I remember him for) as co-writing Wes Anderson's (no big secret, my favorite filmmaker) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Anderson takes up as being producer on this one and I think I spotted him in a little cameo, but I couldn't be sure.
The entire film is shot hand-held and looks remarkably like an Anderson film (maybe because they share cinematographers--Robert Yeoman) and his presence is known. But this is Baumbach's movie and Baumbach is rather pessimistic.
But it is good. There are laughs throughout and pretty good performances all around. The ending is a bit of a...drop-off, I suppose would be the way to describe it, but overall it was a pretty good movie.
***/****
If this movie had come out a year or so ago I probably would have lost it.
It really rang close to home. For me.
The Squid and the Whale is the story of a couple who have been married for 17 years, going through a divorce and how it impacts them and their kids and just the overall situation.
Jeff Daniels is a washed-up novelist/professor, just moved out of his house across The Park in New York City. This all takes place in the 80s by the way. He is coping with jealousy for his wife who has recently started writing. She has gotten an article published and is having a novel about to be released, complete with an excerpt of in The New Yorker. Their two sons basically choose sides after (and even before) the divorce. Jesse Eisenberg looks up to his father who he sees as the source of all wisdom and intelligence and whathaveyou. Owen Kline is his younger brother who pretty much likes his mother best.
Divorces are hard things to go through. I remember. It fucking sucked. Parents are constantly bitching at each other (and they do so here) and the kids are probably becoming psycologically unsound (Owen Klien's character takes up masturbation and has taken to wiping his jism all over library books and lockers). People become blindsighted to a person, only focusing on the NEGATIVE.
It's really sad.
So the movie is pretty much about that. Among other things. Jesse whateverhislastnameis's character gets a girlfriend and continues to ask his father for some advice about how to handle women, always getting the same response, "It's probably not best to get tied down at your age."
Laura Linney is writing and dating.
The youngest is, as mentioned before, masturbating in libraries.
Jeff Daniels is starting to have an affair with one of his doting students (played by Anna Paquin).
The film is directed by Noah Baumbach who you might remember (or at least this is what I remember him for) as co-writing Wes Anderson's (no big secret, my favorite filmmaker) The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. Anderson takes up as being producer on this one and I think I spotted him in a little cameo, but I couldn't be sure.
The entire film is shot hand-held and looks remarkably like an Anderson film (maybe because they share cinematographers--Robert Yeoman) and his presence is known. But this is Baumbach's movie and Baumbach is rather pessimistic.
But it is good. There are laughs throughout and pretty good performances all around. The ending is a bit of a...drop-off, I suppose would be the way to describe it, but overall it was a pretty good movie.
***/****
