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Admirable film.

The film creates a perfect balance between action and depth of basic needs, in the midst of an infertile atmosphere.

There is, somehow, an interesting story here, as well as some good acting. There are also some good scenes

Let me be very fair here, this is not the best movie in my opinion. But, this movie is fun, it has purpose and is very enjoyable to watch.

If you don't think this is one of the greatest movies ever... you know what you are!

This is probably my most personal review. Bear with me for a paragraph. In college I was head over heels in love with a guy who seemed to be feeling the same way, then just one day he stopped his attention, and left skid marks on his way out of town after graduation. No goodbye. A year later he returns with a red head from San Angelo he wants to marry. He took 18 days to figure out what to do with the redhead. He took 18 months to figure out what to do with me. Obviously I was always the backup plan, but it was good practice for being what I've been the rest of my life - the backup plan. So I've kept tabs on him over the years. He married the redhead, she cheated on him, they had a baby, they had another, then she cheated on him some more and then she divorced him after 25 years of marriage with half of his sizable savings in tow to pursue her own career. His now 32 year old son has three favorite movies (Yay Facebook!) - "I Heart Huckabees", "The Sting", and this movie. The last one, about a divorce, naturally interested me. Could I perhaps get some insight into the disintegration of my first love's marriage by seeing this film? Maybe, so I watched it.If this film is how this guy turned out - from the viewpoint of his only son - boy did I dodge a bullet! The movie starts out with a family tennis game. Immediately you see the tension between husband and wife. The way the match is divided up is initially how things are. The oldest son takes dad's side, because he looks up to him. The youngest son feels close to his mother. Kudos to Jeff Daniels. He plays with superb accuracy the part of the arrogant literature professor who peaked early with several publications but whose well of creativity has seemed to run dry. If you have ever met such people, and spending too much time in college as I have, you'll immediately recognize this guy. He manages to keep his self esteem by passive aggressive yet withering criticism of everybody else. The tension between husband and wife grows. The kids know things are not going well, and then one day a family conference. Mom and dad are separating but will have joint custody with a confusing schedule that makes the parents feel good about themselves but is convenient for nobody, especially the kids. The kids act out in a number of bizarre ways over the divorce - plagiarism and masturbation in public places being two of them. It effects the oldest boy's burgeoning relationship with a girl in school as he imitates dad's style and gets dad's results. Now the dad likes to call everybody a Philistine who isn't well educated or interested in what he considers good books and interesting movies. Imagine his surprise/humiliation when he finds out his ex-wife prefers the company of their family tennis instructor, Ivan (Bill Baldwin), who ironically "peaked early" career wise too. He was a pro tennis player who was injured and now he just teaches, but he seems very happy with his lot and comfortable with who he is. At first the oldest boy clearly sides with dad, like I said, even calling mom a whore for her affairs while still married to dad. He doesn't get that this has nothing to do with sexual wantonness on his mother's part, but probably she was just trying to find some comfort since she can't get that from her iceberg of a husband. Daniels' character tries to rationalize his wife leaving him by saying it was because she was beginning to get some publishing success and he is in a dry spell. He doesn't get that this woman is so over him because of his self absorbed ways that have gone on for the greater part of two decades.Laura Linney is particularly good as the wife because she doesn't have a lot of dialogue. She is having to convey how she is feeling with looks and actions, and she definitely gets her viewpoint across.The film is set in Brooklyn in 1986, but it doesn't make a show of the culture of 1986 to where it is practically a character itself. This is NOT "The Wedding Singer". How does this turn out? I'll let you watch and find out, although I've already given away a great deal. I'll just say the ending is abrupt. As for the guy who jilted me back in 1979 - he wears a beard, Jeff Daniels wears a beard in the film. Linney has red hair. His wife who ran on him had red hair. There are two kids in this film. The guy who jilted me had two kids. Still feeling like I dodged a bullet. Highly recommended even if you are not taking a (perhaps) voyeuristic peak into the life of somebody you should have forgotten decades ago.

The Squid and The Whale is a very misleading title since the film has nothing to do with sea creatures. Instead, it is about the impact of family decisions. The root of of it all is a divorce between Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney. Jesse Eisenberg co-stars in one of his breakout roles as their teenage son, Walt. Although an odd film, it is one to savour. Taking place in Brooklyn in 1986, Jeff Daniels plays a college professor whose writing career on the side has not been well. Laura Linney is his very unhappy wife. They have been married for about 16 years and have been miserable the whole time. Both do their best to make it work for the kids' sake, but don't want to continue the lies and misery. One morning, Daniels tells both his sons to come straight home from school because they are having a very important family meeting. He doesn't say what, which makes both Walt and Frank nervous the whole day at school. We get a brief montage of both sons disconnected from the world as they await what their parents could possibly say. The montage is brief and Daniels' announcement is brief, but it leaves an impact on the viewer of how the littlest things can impact children.They announce they are getting divorced and will have shared custody. Both children are devastated. We are too. It is such an odd feel when Daniels moves out and the kids try to adjust to a new lifestyle. We feel just like the kids. Walt learns some secrets about his parents' past and decides to live with dad full time, while Frank wants to spend more time with his mother. Mom starts dating Frank's tennis coach (William Baldwin) and dad has an affair with one of his students (Anna Paquin) who temporarily moves in with him. It's weird seeing your parents date. But Walt and Frank have troubles of their own. Walt is having girl troubles, ultimately because of his parents' rocky marriage, and claims to have written "Hey You" by Pink Floyd. Frank wants to grow up faster, so he sneaks booze and masterbates to a cutout of a woman's hips. Would this all have happened if their parents had a good marriage? The movie noticeably was made with a really low budget. And at 81 minutes no less. It did not need to be long. The shortness and low-budget gave the audience the intimacy to relate to the characters. They seem alive and the movie itself has so much humanity in it.

So we have the Berkman family falling apart in Brooklyn in 1986-- they're affluent white folks who live in a spacious brownstone in Park Slope. The father (Jeff Daniels, superb as always) is an acclaimed novelist whose fame is on the wane, so he also teaches. The mother (Laura Linney) is a budding writer, which causes marital tension because her stories are also so acclaimed that they make it into the most notoriously difficult magazine to crack, The New Yorker.I waited for the author of this fiction, Noah Baumbach, to scale back toward reality, but no. It got worse, and hit bottom with the scene at the high school talent show. That is when their teen-aged son, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg), performed an original song on guitar, to great acclaim (of course). He wins the competition. And no wonder. His song is quite a memorable tune. It's "Hey You," by Pink Floyd. Time for a reality check. Pink Floyd's album, The Wall, which includes "Hey You," was issued in 1979, topped the Billboard charts for 15 weeks, and was eventually certified 23x platinum. So we can assume that it would be familiar to at least a few of the parents and teachers, not to mention students besides Walt, in a New York City high school. I mean, no community is that hopelessly square, right? But, to my amazement (and disbelief), the only person who notices the plagiarism is the local tennis instructor, played as a smiling buffoon by William Baldwin, who says words to this effect: "Hey, Walt, I really like that song you wrote by Pink Floyd."This gets Walt an appointment with the school psychiatrist. His 12- year-old brother, Frank, really should have his head looked at too. He's guzzling beer at home and leaving semen stains all over school.There are is no emotional build here, no fresh insights, or even freshly packaged ones. The characters might as well be in any of the various Hollywood movies that insult suburbia as a soul-dead, all- cracker culture (Reservation Road, The Ice Storm, Pleasantville, American Beauty), because setting it in tribal Brooklyn wasted the multi- ethnic, hyper-urban essence of that vibrant borough. It is only the performances-- and really only Jeff Daniels, who brings an unnerving calm to the arrogant, selfish, and pompous man he plays-- that made me stay with the film. I cannot imagine why it was received with the kind of acclaim that implausibly follows its characters.