Divorce is hard. The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach’s 2005 semi-autobiographical film about a Reagan-era, bohemian Brooklyn family dealing with a painful and confusing separation, is a humorous composition of a wounded family in denial of martial dissolution.
Divorce is hard. The Squid and the Whale, Noah Baumbach’s 2005 semi-autobiographical film about a Reagan-era, bohemian Brooklyn family dealing with a painful and confusing separation, is a humorous composition of a wounded family in denial of martial dissolution.
There’s a lot of ugliness here in the way Baumbach stages his inept intellectual characters as often passive-aggressive, if not relatable uh, well assholes. The matriarch of the Berkman clan is delusional intellectual Bernard (Jeff Daniels), a writing professor and has-been writer who pronounces his theoretical adulterous affairs he morally declined to his oldest son, Walt (Jessie Eisenberg), who takes that lament as revelatory insight into his own burgeoning, pretentious worldview. It’s very cringe inducing when Walt passes off Pink Floyd’s “Hey You” as an original composition at a talent show while bouncing back and forth from thinking he can do better than his lovely girlfriend for somebody flashier or more sexually skilled (surprise, he’s a virgin) since he’s gotten positive attention from his fraudulent performance.
The especially wonderful Laura Linney plays the indecisive mother, Joan, who is a rising literary star and takes the brunt of the blame for the break up (especially in the eyes of Walt who carries on his father’s heartbreak and anger) but gets at least approval from the youngest Frank (Owen Kline), who from the psychological distress of it all is experimenting with alcohol and masturbation in … peculiar ways. He’s a walking cry for help, but at least he gets that his mom is probably being the more respectable adult here.
Things get trickier once you gather that perhaps Bernard is dealing his soon to be ex-wife’s extramarital affairs and passively divulges that information to set up some amount of resentment from his two sons. It’s hard watching the pretentious, faux- Walt take on his father’s bad traits, recommending and discourages novels he’s never read based solely on his father’s dinner-time summaries. From angry car trips around the block looking for a space to pickup games of tennis to moving into a new place, Baumbach sets up plenty of small intimate moments of furious pace to advance the story and sordid details within his elegant, thought-out script. Casting Anna Paquin as the college student that Bernard not only teaches, but starts to date is quite cheeky considering their father-daughter roles in Fly Away Home. What The Squid and the Whale does exceptionally well is painstakingly portray the trivial squabbles and major quarrels that can accompany any divorce. It’s also a film about how even intelligent, smart, sophisticated parents can fuck up their children through narcissism, neglect, and pride.
The Squid and the Whale was a turning point in Baumbach’s oeuvre and would reinvigorate his career along with his 2004 collaboration with Wes Anderson for The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou. It felt like an affirmed second wind for Baumbach, a nice maturing for the 2000s, and a promising restart to what is arguably our new Woody Allen. Baumbach even tried to coax Anderson to direct The Squid and the Whale, but Anderson argued that only he could was qualified for the job. I would find that assessment quite astute as this film is quite sincere and quite personal and would benefit from not having Anderson’s typical precociousness, but it is fun to imagine what that all would entail. Baumbach has been prolific in the past ten years and with varying degrees of success, and The Squid and the Whale still remains his sharpest and auspicious efforts. I postulate that Anderson’s The Royal Tenanbaums had a huge influence in Baumbach and gave him inspiration or perhaps enough commercial viability for quirky, crumbling families and strained domestic dynamics. Baumbach cuts sharper and demonstrates a more naturalistic, uncompromising, and cynical vision than Anderson typically does. It’s that sharpness, the actual lack of artistic flair that gives The Squid and the Whale it’s oomph and made it one of the better and influential dramedies of the 2000s.
The Squid and the Whale arrives for the first time on Blu-Ray from the Criterion Collection. It features a restored 4K transfer supervised by cinematographer Robert Yeoman and director Noah Baumbach with 5.1 surround DTS-HD Master Audio. It includes new interviews with Baumbach himself, actors Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jessie Eisenberg, and Owen Kline. Also a new conversation about the score and featured music in the film between Baumbach and composers Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips is included. Brought over from previous releases is the “Behind the Squid and the Whale”, a 2005 documentary which featured on-set footage and cast interviews. Rounding it all out are the trailers, audition footage, and a booklet featuring a 2005 interview of Baumbach by novelist Jonathan Letham, and an essay by critic Kent Jones. Strangely absent is the audio commentary that accompanied the first release of The Squid and the Whale back in 2005. While that would have been a great inclusion, this still remains a fantastic release that looks fabulous.
The Squid and the Whale
United States (2005)
Noah Baumbach
Spine #845
Available on DVD, Blu-Ray, and Filmstruck
