Film Review: The Squid and the Whale

[da]

Rgh. Neighbour's smoking is keeping me awake. Maybe I'll be sleepier in 20 minutes. Maybe she'll stop.

Over the weekend we rented The Squid and the Whale. Excellent movie. It's based on the director's childhood, as the son of a writer-couple who divorced in the mid-80s. A fair bit of family dysfunctionality, as well as teen awkwardness, including the older brother who plagiarizes Pink Floyd at a school talent show (as he explains later, "I felt I could've written it, so the fact that I didn't is merely academic"). The father is a blowhard elitist who has passed his career peak; whose personality has rubbed off too much on the older son. The mother is somewhat overly-disclosing, and quite fed up with living with her (ex-)husband. Some wonderful lines between the two of them. ("Him: All that work I did at the end of our marriage, making dinners, cleaning up, being more attentive. It never was going to make a difference, was it? You were leaving no matter what. Her: You never made a dinner. Him: ...I made burgers that time you had pneumonia. Her: [laughs] Burgers.)

Less whiny than Woody Allen, and at least as biting humour, with lots and lots of scenes in Manhattan and Brooklyn that made me nostalgic.

Comments

[whynotsteve.livejournal.com]

I really enjoyed it (made my top 10 for last year). I loved all of the performances, and Linney and Daniels in particular were painfully realistic in their portrayals.

[poeticalpanther.livejournal.com]

What's she smoking that's keeping you up, salmon? ;)

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

That wouldn't be so much of a problem; I'd go over, cadge a little bit, have it on a bagel, then go to sleep full. ;)

*mmm... smoked salmon*

*comes back to earth*

Cigarette smoke is hard to make better, other than time and moving air. (that is, air moving in a direction away from our house).

[epi-lj.livejournal.com]

I've been wanting to see this for ages. It's on my zip.ca list. :) (I wanted to see it in the theatre, but could never find anybody to go with me and never had a good opportunity to go alone.)

[da-lj.livejournal.com]

Heh. Likewise; I would've seen it sooner, too. But it won't go stale, unlike, say, SoaP... :)