Director Noah Baumbach’s “The Squid and the Whale” explores the prospect of a family at war, and a family that will likely always be at war. Director Baumbach has a lot to say about family and how parents can decide what kind of people we ultimately grow up to be. “The Squid and the Whale” is a weird, darkly comic and often demented look at how the eternal grudge of a man and his ex-wife will likely keep their sons at odds with then and one another for the rest of their lives. Director Baumbach contorts the dynamic of a grudging family, but also stays true to a lot of themes that find two sons on a diverging road and a dark path. Jessie Eisenberg is great here as the son of Jeff Daniels’ Bernard, an educated often pompous individual who has a keen sense of attempting to make his equals feel inferior.
In particular he’s very calculative about grooming oldest son Walt to aspire to be like him in every sense, and then knocking him down a peg whenever he attempts individuality. Walt is a young man without much of an identity who is under immense pressure to impress his father all the while younger brother Frank is approaching his sexual awakening in the most obscene and disgusting manner involving bodily fluids. Most of the central plot involving Daniels as Bernard and ex-wife Joan (a very gorgeous Laura Linney) features them struggling for power with their sons and trying to spite each other as best as they can. Their desire to hate each other and use their sons as tools for undermining one another ultimately draws them away from some growing mental problems. Eisenberg manages to portray Walt as a very flawed and pompous individual who is only the way he is by the act of miming his father.
He may never be creative, but seeks outright bold ways to fake it, even performing Pink Floyd song “Hey You” for a school crowd that he tries to pass off as his own work. Eventually he begins to believe his own lies, with the confrontation of his plagiarism amounting to him insisting he could have written it if Roget Waters didn’t. There really aren’t any easy solutions of fixes in “The Squid and the Whale,” as director Baumbach pushes his characters in to corners, tightening the noose as much as he can on this foursome. The performances are collectively excellent from Jeff Daniels, and Laura Linney, right down to Eisenberg and Owen Klein. Noah Baumbach can often feel like Wes Anderson-lite, but “The Squid and the Whale” thankfully never suffers from it. The film ends as a very entertaining and thought provoking character study of two parents whose dysfunction and egos will ultimately decide lives for their sons that will repeat history all over again.
Featured in the Criterion Edition is a twenty seven HD visit with director Baumbach, who discusses the personal journey for making his movie and what it means to him. Baumbach also explains how long the film took to get scripted and made. “Revisiting The Squid and The Whale” is a twenty minute HD collection of interviews with various cast and crew for the film. There are talks with Linney, Eisenberg, and Owen Kline, and garner insight in to how these individuals approached their characters. There’s a seven minute HD interview with Jeff Daniels, who discusses his role, and how he fought to steal it from another A List Actor. There are a slew of SD audition tapes, with auditions for Walt and Frank and Kline and Eisenberg, the “Do You Like Frank Kafka?” scene rehearsed by Eisenberg and co-star Hallee Feiffer.
There’s the “Not an Intellectual” scene rehearsed by Eisenberg and Feiffer where he asks character Sophie about past relationships, there’s “Don’t Be Difficult” which features Eisenberg and Feifer rehearsing their fight on the street, and “I Know It’s Over” the audition tape featuring Eisenberg and Feiffer who run through their break up scene. “Dean Wareham And Britta Phillips” is a look at the professional relationship with Baumbach and the two composers Dean Wareham and Britta Phillips, who discuss previous films they collaborated on and their choices for the soundtrack of “The Squid and the Whale.” “Behind ‘The Squid and The Whale’” is a ten minute SD look at the actors and how they approached their characters and their roles in general. Finally, there are four minutes of HD trailers for “The Squid and the Whale.”