'Joint custody blows,' says 'The Squid and the Whale.' Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels give gifted performances in Noah Baumbach's autobiographical look at divorce in the 1980s. The script feels very real'it is like watching a real family onscreen, bumping into, getting back at and making fools of one another.
Within 'Squid's' sad, unwinding context, there are no normal characters and no normal plot. The characters are so acidic and the writing so good it is near impossible to sympathize with anybody. At the same time, the film forces opinions about all the characters.
Linney and Daniels play Joan and Bernard Berkman, a married duo of writers in 1986. Their kids Frank (Owen Kline) and Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) are pulled into a whirlwind of nagging, profanity and wailing fights over everything from tennis matches to story critiques. Joan calls for a divorce, Bernard moves out and the divorce prompts a series of really bad ideas, illogical planning and the wrong decisions that launch during.
The characters must ask, 'Who will get who what night? Who gets the cat'? One of the most important decisions to be made concerns not the children, but the plethora of books, and which ones belong to whom. Five minutes after the divorce talk in the living room, Linney's character already has her maiden name scribbled on the inside covers of the books she bought throughout the marriage, and the kids are in a joint custody warp that involves staying with one parent one night and the other the next night.
Everything for the adults is about making the other look bad, and this film showcases the digression of the kids. The oldest son, Walt, is 16 and rapt with the pretentious life that his father seems to lead. He lies about the books he's read and even plagiarizes a song by Pink Floyd for a talent contest. When he finds a girlfriend, Sofie (Halley Feiffer), he is drawn into the belief that he can do better because of his father's constant urges to 'play the field.'
Walt finds himself hard-pressed to cope upon breaking up with Sofie, but he cannot bring himself to talk to his mother. Bernard informs Walt of a long-term affair Joan had been having near the end of their marriage, causing Walt to condemn her as a whore. Frank, who is a few years younger than Walt, hates their father for the slimeball he is. Frank soon discovers his sexuality and the wonders of hard liquor, and he finds himself needing parent-teacher conferences at school for masturbating in the library.
'The Squid and the Whale' is not akin to Lifetime after-school specials because it fails to take a stand. Nobody's getting beaten, and nobody is an alcoholic or addicted to amphetamines. This is more or less a film about what happens all the time in real life, and while it sounds dastardly and dark, it really is quite funny. Caution though, as an open mind is necessary, otherwise, this movie might touch all of the wrong hearts in all of the wrong places.
