so the squid and the whale.



I just finished watching this film and right off hand I feel kind of disappointed. It just seemed kind of overly pretentious to me, but that might have been because of the characters. Jeff Daniels' character, Bernard, is a college English professor and a struggling novelist. He plays the "holier-than-thou" academic quite well, which in itself makes me kind of despise him. His oldest son, Walt, is in high school and obviously holds his father on a very high pedestal and models himself after him quite closely. Whatever his father says is gospel. These two versions of the same person wear hard against my feelings towards this movie, but the dynamic nature of Walt as the movie progresses makes it better. By the end he kind of realizes that his father is not perfect and is pretty much the pretentious ass that the rest of us knew all along. Laura Linney did a good job as the mother, I'm beginning to like her more and more as I see her in different roles. Although her age in Love Actually still boggles me. Not to mention the fact that she has an eerie resemblance to Annette O'Toole of Smallville fame. But anyways characters aside you can definitely tell that Wes Anderson has his hand in this film, it being set in the 70's gives it a kind of Royal Tenenbaums feel, but the techniques of filming were different, although a few zooms here and there were trademark Zissou :P. I think this film intrigued me enough that I'll be thinking on it for the next few days. Maybe I'll have a different opinion after some pondering and a second viewing. I think the whole look and feel of it just left me wanting some humorous dialogue, a break from the severity of the story. But it's its own film, and I'm kinda glad it stood its own ground. The scene at the end with the squid and the whale was beautiful and really captures the moment of Walt's turning point in his
perspective on his parents and his life.

But note to all filmmakers: Do NOT cast a Baldwin in your film under any circumstances. No questions, just don't.