| The Intelligentsia at Work, Play--and Destruction |
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| written by talltale |
March 28, 2006 - 12:26 PM PST |
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4 out of 6 members found this review helpful
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If you count yourself among the urban intelligentsia who have both children and a divorce, THE SQUID & THE WHALE may give you quite a dose of worthwhile "creeps." Nobody here comes off as very likeable, including the kids, but they do ring true--and sad. If you don't find some of yourself in these parents (maybe in the kids, too, if you look back far enough), I'll be surprised.
Supposedly, writer/director Noah Baumbach based his film on his own family. That he was able to see all of them, including himself, as clearly as they are portrayed here--not as villains, just selfish and self-involved--is some kind of triumph. You can carp about this or that (too much overt sexuality in the younger kid, that dispenser of hand sanitizer on the hospital room wall long before this became fashionable), but it won't matter much. This whopper of a good film is exactly the kind of hard truth that never gets recognized by the Academy of Motion Picture Arts & Sciences. |
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