Good Movie, My Brother
The Squid and the Whale is one painful movie. And from that pain it generates some laughs, but it's not pretty. Right from the get-go you're embroiled in the thick of a marriage on the decline and you watch as things get worse, the parents separate, and the kids take sides. Jeff Daniels gives a fantastic performance as the messed-up father whose superiority complex and comments about uncultured Philistines makes you feel like if you don't like this movie, then you're one too. Thankfully, I liked it. B+
posted by Martin at 8:00 PM
1 Comments:
Shorter Squid and the Whale: Mean people do mean shit to undeserving saints.
I mean, everybody's good in it, but did Jeff Daniels have to be so unredeemable and Laura Linney such a saint? Are Tiffany and I the only two people in America who see through this claptrap? This is exactly the kind of movie I like -- remember, my favorite movie of this year is "Me and You and Everyone We Know" -- but whereas that movie seems to find real situations for its characters searching for connections to other people, S&W just seems to find more situations for Jeff Daniels to be an ass. The extent to which a viewer enjoys this movie, I think, is the extent to which:
1. You identify with the 1980s NYC setting; and
2. You find the Jeff Daniels character funny.
Since I score a zero on both those points, my two-word review:
Over. Rated.
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