The Squid and the Whale (2005)

I thought this was a pretty good movie. I have to be honest though, I was expecting something slower paced. This movie is about the emotional breakdown of a family that undergoes the parents’ divorce. There are many bitter sentiments that are exchanged in this family, and I’d say it was an accurate account of the feelings each member would go through. However, I also thought the film’s pacing was way too rushed, and as a result of that I could not enjoy watching it. The pacing gave me anxiety, and I was waiting desperately for some slower paced scenes. Maybe the pacing was done in this fashion for the purpose of creating anxiety; in that case it is successful, in my opinion.
Some side notes that I enjoyed about this film; Wes Anderson co-produced this film and it is pretty evident in the style of the film, specifically the dialogue that he was involved in this project. The other side note is that they reference the first Godard film “Breathless” in one of the later scenes when the husband calls his ex-wife a bitch in sign language, haha!
I thought the scene where the title is explained was very poignant. It said a lot about what the family once was before too much pressure ripped them apart.
The cinematography mostly added to my anxiety that was created in the pacing. With the majority of the film being shot handheld it seemed like they were rushing through the scenes and that they only had a limited amount of time to shoot the film. It makes me wonder how long the production period of this film was.
The acting was really well done; I thought that the characters had great chemistry. Props goes out to Billy Baldwin for his underrated portrayal of a would-be tennis pro who becomes involved with the wife. He’s hardly on screen and has hardly any lines, but he still steals the show, you said it brother!
Anna Paquin as the college student who has an affair with the husband was just gross. Jeff Daniels played her dad in “Fly away Home”, that’s incent.
Overall, I recommend this film to anyone looking for a good family melodrama, it does not disappoint