Squid and the Whale
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Review #30 of 365
Film: The Squid and the Whale [R] 81 minutes
WIP: $8.00
When 1st Seen: 9 February 2006
Where Viewed: Starz Film Center, Denver, CO
Time: 5:40 p.m.
Review Dedicated to: Thad V. of Colorado Springs, CO
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Originally released in a very limited scope back in October 2005, I finally got around to seeing The Squid and the Whale today. First, allow me to allay any fears…you will sort of understand why the movie is called The Squid and the Whale by the end of the film. Second, I’ve really been more motivated to see this film ever since it made Stephen King’s top 10 list printed in Entertainment Weekly—I couldn’t wait to try and figure out why it was on his list and some other people’s lists as well. Unfortunately having now seen the film, I cannot explain why it made Mr. King’s list—it wasn’t scary, none of the machines come to life, there are no demon-possessed young women, no rabid animals, no haunted hotels, nothing. Hey, I’m kidding, I don’t mean to stereotype Mr. King’s film interests. Of course, he is free to enjoy any type of film. In fact, maybe he prefers films outside his usual genre. Well, The Squid and the Whale would certainly qualify as it was, way, way, way outside his usual intelligent but creepy realm.
At the core, this is a film about what some my call even just mild familial dysfunction and what happens to the kids in the process of enduring the divorce of their parents. What it made me realize all too bluntly (and, for the record, I am the child of divorced parents) is that divorcing parents often say to their kids (mine didn’t say this, but most do) “Kids, this is not your fault and has nothing to do with you.” They say this, I think, because they have been coached to say this by others divorcing parents, movies/tv, or by psychoanalysts etc. and, I believe, because they genuinely do not wish for their children (good parents anyway) to feel they had anything to do with this event—basically, they do not want their kids to experience any pain or trauma. What they do not seem to get, as this film shows, is that the kids have everything to do with it, and that there is next to nothing that parents can do to give the kids back their ‘normal’ (and I use that word carefully as to mean that life which the kids perceived to be ‘normal’) lives. Nothing. Joint custody, custody battles, playing one parent off the other, etc., it’s all just quite terrible. Not that it can never work, I’m positive it can sometimes work. The risk, however, of everything imploding is clear and present no matter how amicable things may seem. For the Berkman Family, helmed by Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan (Laura Linney) in this film, once the events of the divorce unfold, everything seems to go awry for the children Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline). Despite their initially lovely intentions to absolutely share the children, their in-fighting and adult lives completely complicate the lives of their children leading to some rather unsettling outcomes fueled by the fact that each son feels beholden to just one parent while expressing certain disdain for the other.
Moving beyond that theme, underneath there is a subtext going on in the film that has to do with the squid and the whale and a major realization that Walt, the eldest son, must come to grasp. This is a terribly unfinished part of the script and leaves the audience to puzzlement as to what has really happened. Is Walt’s entire perception of his father a myth? There are some clues, but an abrupt ending leaves us hanging on to comprehend what has really transpired.
I have seen my fair share of small, artistically motivated, independent films. Some are as foreign to my sense of comprehension as a Jackson Pollack painting. I get that I am not able to dissect and get to the bottom of every film. I apologize to the writer/director Noah Baumbauch and admit that I really didn’t feel this film was finished. I left the theater feeling weary as if I had been on a really complicated roller coaster and couldn’t get off. There were emotional twists and turns. Unfortunately, I was unable to empathize with any of the characters save maybe the younger son, Frank, and only because he is still too young to fathom what’s going on and the events of the divorce have forced him to grow up before his time. Lastly, the ending just springs a final series of unanswered questions on us. There is no issue that the acting is extremely good. All four of the main characters were portrayed with precision. I thought Jesse Eisenberg was especially good as the older brother with a serious fixation on the grandiose talents of his professor/author father. And, the story has a lot of promise to be really, really good. Maybe it was, and I just didn’t get it. I can never tell with some of these independent films if people say they get it just so they won’t be the only one to admit that they didn’t get it. Well, let me be brave and say, I’m sorry, I just didn’t quite get it.
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The Squid And The Whale [DVD] (2005) DVD
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