The Squid and the Whale

365 Films

Entry #105

The Squid and The Whale (2005)

Directed by Noah Baumbach

I have a confession to make: my original understanding was that Noah Baumbach’s The Squid and the Whale was a spin off of Wes Anderson’s The Life Aquatic (released the previous year).  It made a little bit of sense (I think), both have aquatic elements in the title, Baumbach was a co-writer on Life, and Anderson was a producer on Squid.  I think it’s also entirely possible that I mixed up my Jeffs and thought that Jeff Goldblum was in Squid instead of Jeff Daniels.  Luckily Baumbach made the right call with Daniels and cast him in a role that quite possibly re-defined his career (it certainly helped launch the lovable asshole character that The Newsroom has made its center piece).  More to the point, Squid has absolutely nothing to do with The Life Aquatic and is rather a great film in its own right as a quasi-biographical look at divorce from within an affluent Park Slope literary family.  The most astonishing aspect of Baumbach’s third feature is the fact that it is only 81 minutes long (76 if you don’t include the end credits) and it is, as Daniels’ Bernard Berkman would put it, very dense.  Every single conversation verbally mirrors the physical competition of tennis and ping-pong as seen throughout the film.  The entire film could be seen as an extended series of competitive events with characters claiming ownership of ideas, memories, and their perspective sides of the marital split.  As the film breezes by, your eyes are constantly darting back and forth as if in a tennis match.  These are characters whose personal language define and shield them from themselves and each other.  Baumbach requires a lot of concentration to follow the trail of breadcrumbs to figure these people out.  Brilliant screenplay aside, The Squid and the Whale is most commendable for its strict refusal to bathe its musings on family and male adolescence with a suffocating nostalgic glow.  The 80’s period details are tangible and subtle while never loudly pointing a blinking arrow to big hair and acid washed jeans (seriously, we need to stop fucking fetishizing the 80’s…and the 90’s for that matter but go nuts with the early aughts).  Most impressively of all, Baumbach refuses to make strict or clear-cut heroes and villains out of his characters.  Nobody stumbles into abysmal failure and nobody gets an easy redemption either, they are simply entangled forever in this conflict like the titular creatures of the sea.  This is what eldest son Walt ultimately has to grapple with, instead of embracing the maternal warmth of his mother during childhood and the present day adulation/mimicry of his father.  He has to see his parents for who they are, in all of their failed, humble glory.  Where most films about “coming of age” are content in the writing to inject their current wisdom into their teenage self, Baumbach refuses to let his cinematic stand-in off the hook.  The characters in the film (particularly Walt) are more than happy to fire off their meaningless sharp-edged critiques in vain attempts to claim whatever competitive edge they can over one another.  It is only at the end, when Walt finally comes face to face with the squid and the whale at the natural history museum, does anybody in the film begin to see him or herself as they really are.  On the other hand, Walt is only looking at a replication of nature rather than the real thing.  Then again, in Baumbach’s world of brilliant failures, that’s close enough.     

PS 

I know this isn't the trailer but A) nobody will notice either way and B) I couldn't find the damn thing.  Besides AO Scott has a much sharper mind than I do, so consider this me doing you all a favor.