Based on the true childhood experiences of director Noah Baumbach, The Squid and the Whale tells the story of a patriarch (Jeff Daniels) of an eccentric Brooklyn family who once had been a great novelist, but has settled into a teaching job. When his wife (Laura Linney) discovers a writing talent of her own, jealousy divides the family, leaving two teenage sons to forge new relationships with their parents. Linney's character begins dating her younger son's tennis coach (William Baldwin). Meanwhile, Daniels' character has an affair with the student (Anna Paquin) his older son is pursuing.
Both sharply comical and piercingly sad. Mr. Baumbach surveys the members of the flawed, collapsing Berkman family with sympathy but without mercy, noting their individual and collective failures and imperfections with relentless precision...
Full reviewWithout jerking tears or reducing the acid content of his wit, Baumbach's humane movie gets under your skin...
Full reviewIt's a rare film that can be convincingly tender, bitterly funny, and ruthlessly cutting over the course of fewer than 90 minutes. The Squid and the Whale not only manages this, it also contains moments that sock you with all three qualities at the same time. Writer-director Noah Baumbach has crafted this tale out of real love and, I presume, painful ambivalence, revisiting the divorce of his own parents...
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Acutely observed, faultlessly acted, graced with piercing emotion and unsparing honesty, it will make you laugh because you can't bear to cry...
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Baumbach crams an impressive amount of characterization and humor into 82 minutes...
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Painful, funny and beautifully acted, by Jeff Daniels particularly, who gives a career-best performance...
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