Wednesday, May 17, 2006
The Squid and the Whale (2005)
Apart from a few writing/directing gigs in the mid 90s, Noah Baumbach’s career really started with the co-writing of 2004’s Wes Anderson film, The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, a quirky but oddly touching film that emoted different feelings than most others films. The Squid and the Whale evokes similar feelings of uneasy humour and dialogue that make watching the film an uncomfortable, yet intriguing experience. Baumbach once said, “I always viewed life as material for a movie” and true to his words, this film is partly based on his childhood in which he “was always plowing through… [novels] I wasn’t equipped to understand.” While The Squid and the Whale is not always easy to watch, the post-film discussions it can spark make it a worthy viewing.This film demonstrates divorce and its outcomes in a family of literati; they play tennis, read Kafka and engage in meta-ethical discussions of ‘dense’ novels. In the relatively short 80 minutes of film, brothers Walt and Frank come to terms with their parents’ divorce in different ways. Older brother Walt idolizes his father, Bernard (Jeff Daniels), who is too familiar a character; a self-proclaimed literati who manages to snub the rest of the uneducated population whilst keeping his nose in Dostoevsky and Nietzche. A belief in his own superiority is passed down to Walt who defends his father’s intellect, and shares his thoughts on life and love. How these thoughts negatively influence his attempts to woo a girl in his school is both funny and sad. There is also a theme of redemption and owning up to certain illusions of his own life that is a joy to see unfold by the end of the film. On the other side, younger brother Frank clings to his mother Joan (Laura Linney). Despite a playful and cheery exterior, Frank’s scenes of inner turmoil are amongst the hardest to watch and the most confusing for viewers. We come to realize early on that Frank is not part of the literati world; he is a philistine, which obviously has an adverse affect on his relationship with his father.
There are scenes that are strange, and a brutal honesty to the characters that is difficult to watch. It watches like a modern-day novel reads, full of strange occurrences and sickening acts that sound good in novels but come across as odd on film. At face value, The Squid and the Whale can be easily dismissed as an oddball flick, but in retrospect it is much deeper and more clever than one viewing can allow. This story is not only about the consequences of divorce, but a character study. There is a father (brilliantly played by Daniels) who deserves to be sucker punched, but who also is deserving of pity, for his narrow-mindedness and delusions of grandeur; an older son, whose blind submission needs awakening; a mother whose physical body needs sustenance; and a younger son,
fighting his own inner demons amongst the turmoil of divorce. Despite the oddities, The Squid and the Whale is worth watching for those willing to put their minds to work even after the credits roll. # posted by Andres Canella : 8:25 PM
