Raw squid

Our rating:

It’s not often that mainstream movies actually make us confront raw emotion. Your typical multiplex movie will either avoid emotion altogether, or will deal with it in a safe, distanced and usually reassuring way. So when a film like The Squid and the Whale comes along that deals with some very difficult emotional territory, it tends to stand out from the crowd.

This challenging but often warm and amusing film takes us into the difficult world of relationship breakdown and its consequences. Sure, we’ve seen this type of thing before, but here, Baumbach makes it more real in a way, because he’s more interested in the emotional impact of divorce on the teenage characters than in any discussion about its legalities. That elevates this above movie-of-the-week melodrama and into very interesting territory.

Set in 1986, the film opens with the marriage of literary professor Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) and his writer wife Joan (Laura Linney) clearly in trouble. The couple’s two sons, Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Owen Kline) are seemingly oblivious to what’s going on, immersed in school and sports. But when the end comes, the boys are shocked. Bernard and Joan set up a “joint custody” arrangement, whereby the boys are to spend alternate nights with each parent. But there’s a problem: Walt worships his father and blames his mother for the break-up; while Frank feels exactly the opposite. Things get even more complicated when Joan starts seeing the boys’ tennis coach Ivan (William Baldwin), and Bernard takes in a boarder in the form of sexually aggressive student Lili (Anna Paquin).

For anyone who’s been in a similar situation, I’m sure this film will be hard going at times. Baumbach doesn’t sugar-coat anything, and even in the film’s funnier moments, there’s a real edge to the material. The film is based on Baumbach’s personal experiences, and that certainly shows through. You just can’t write stuff like this from imagination – you need to have lived it.

I was a little perplexed by Baumbach’s choice to set it in 1986. While I’m sure it was important to him personally, it doesn’t really add anything to the film itself, either in terms of plot or story development. Indeed, the film’s contemporary relevance is one of its great strengths. Also, the final scene (from which it takes its title) seemed a little forced, but that’s quite a minor quibble in the context of the film’s many attributes.

Naturally, material this challenging needs great actors to support it, and the cast here don’t let Baumbach down. Jeff Daniels, who’s gradually shedding that Dumb & Dumber reputation, is wonderful as the tragicomic Bernard, while Laura Linney is spectacular as usual as Joan. But it’s the young Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline (yes, he is Kevin Kline’s son – and Phoebe Cates’ as well) who really make the film. Both are achingly good as the two boys caught up in a mess not of their making. They barely put a foot wrong in a complementary pair of performances. William Baldwin provides some comic relief as the gormless Ivan, while Anna Paquin is incendiary as the self-confident but dangerous Lili.

The Squid and the Whale certainly won’t be the easiest or lightest film you’ll see this year. The film goes to some very raw – and sometimes dark – places. But if you’re prepared to go with it to those places, there’s plenty of rewards here.

David Edwards

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The Squid and the Whale

Director: Noah Baumbach
Cast: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, William Baldwin and Anna Paquin
Release: Nationally on 13 April 2006
Rated: MA 15+