The Squid and the Whale (2005)

This film reminded me why movies are made and why I like to watch them. "The Squid and the Whale", Baumbach's semi-autobiographical tale of a disintegrating middle class and intellectual Brooklyn family in the early 1980s, is one of those films in which the more specific it gets, the more universal it feels. The more we understand the individual characters, the more we relate to the story.

The cast is led by Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney portraying respectively Bernard, an arrogant and self-infatuated, once much-acclaimed novelist, and Joan, his rising author star wife. This slice-of-life drama begins with this couple's desire to split and it goes over this developing family conflict from the perspective of each character involved, including their two sons, 16 years-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and his younger 12 years-old brother Frank (Owen Kline).

Full of small tip-of-the-iceberg details, this remarkable screenplay balances drama and humor. It transitions smoothly from the burden that makes parental separation so real to the lightness of everyday relationships that makes it so human. Besides the seriousness of the story's main theme, it is not a heavy tale. At the end of the day, we are just voyeurs of a relatively short period of time as this picture unfolds in front of our eyes.

"The Squid and the Whale" doesn't wrap with tight finality but rather finds an open-ended conclusion worth an after-movie discussion. No, this movie won't change your life, it is not the perfect 'date' movie, but it is an excellent choice of well-done independent American cinema. You can still catch it at the Landmark E Street Cinema in DC.