I saw The Squid and the Whale over the weekend. There were only three other people in the theatre for the 5:30 p.m. show, so it may not be the biggest film of the year. But it certainly is one of the best. Depressing, yet enjoyable. Like listening to someone else's psychoanalytic session. It is told from the point of view of a 16-year old boy in the midst of his parents divorce and struggle with joint custody. Best line, from a friend of the protagonist: "Joint custody sucks..." But on another level, it is about the idiocy of urban life, the shallow and empty dead-end of pretentious literati in NYC, repeating their mantras about "filet" and Kafka and New Yorker short stories while neglecting their children and families. The zipless coupling and uncoupling, Sex in the City without the nice clothes, the Lolita-like professor's relationships, the Holden Caufield youthful attitude, the Portnoy's Complaint masturbation, make the film a nice literary detective novel. Cinematically, Baumbach pays homage to Woody Allen and the Museum of Natural History, as well as a number of French films that I probably haven't seen -- there is a poster for The Mother and the Whore, so that's a clue. Anna Paquin is the minx, so New Zealand cinema is represented as well. The acting is good. Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Billy Baldwin and the rest of the ensemble seemed to be having fun making each other miserable. Oh, did I mention Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?
If Baumbach's parents are really still talking to him after this, then they are either more shallow and star-struck than it is possible to believe, or the real-life situation was even worse. Totally realistic, compelling, and an indictment of New York's pretentious poseurs. Two Ph.D.'s in literature--one a published novelist, the other a New Yorker writer--can't recognize their son has plaigarized a Pink Floyd song. Priceless...
