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Squid and the Whale, The
Samuel Goldwyn Films


7.3

based on 37 reviews
Read critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

based on 243 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie

FILM:

MPAA RATING: R for strong sexual content, graphic dialogue and language

Starring Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, Halley Feiffer, William Baldwin, Anna Paquin, and Alexandra Daddario

The Squid and the Whale captures with extraordinary immediacy the inner workings of the Berkman family in 1986 Brooklyn.

GENRE(S):	Drama
WRITTEN BY:	Noah Baumbach
DIRECTED BY:	Noah Baumbach
RELEASE DATE:	DVD: March 21, 2006 Theatrical: October 5, 2005
RUNNING TIME:	88 minutes, Color
ORIGIN:	USA

Director's Award (Dramatic) and Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, 2005 Sundance Film Festival

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...

100

Premiere Glenn Kenny

It's a rare film that can be convincingly tender, bitterly funny, and ruthlessly cutting over the course of fewer than 90 minutes. The Squid and the Whale not only manages this, it also contains moments that sock you with all three qualities at the same time.

100

Dallas Observer Robert Wilonsky

Treacherously funny and wrenchingly sad.

100

Chicago Tribune Allison Benedikt

Steering clear of phony melodrama and indie pretense, Baumbach captures a crisis in one family's life that, though it shakes the foundation, leaves all four Berkmans drifting toward highs and lows unknown, each of them only dimly aware that, no matter what the movies tell us, we never really come of age.

100

Charlotte Observer Lawrence Toppman

Squid keeps you on your toes, but payoffs will have you smiling - maybe in rueful recognition of the truth - in scene after scene.

Portland Oregonian M. E. Russell

Isn't easy to watch, but it's beautifully written and acted, with a sharp eye for the small embarrassments of divorce.

Baltimore Sun Michael Sragow

Bitterly funny about divorce, it's even sharper and more original about intellectuals and their discontent.

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Baumbach captures the ways in which children takes sides in a war they can't even begin to comprehend.

Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum

In hovering, The Squid and the Whale becomes its own realistic display of family entropy, as cautionary as it is educational.

Time Richard Corliss

The Squid and the Whale is domestic tragedy recollected as comedy: a film whose catalog of deceits and embarrassments, and of love pratfalling over itself, makes it as (excruciatingly) painful as it is (exhilaratingly) funny.

The New York Times Dana Stevens

Both sharply comical and piercingly sad. Mr. Baumbach surveys the members of the flawed, collapsing Berkman family with sympathy but without mercy, noting their individual and collective failures and imperfections with relentless precision.

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Acutely observed, faultlessly acted, graced with piercing emotion and unsparing honesty, it will make you laugh because you can't bear to cry.

The New Yorker David Denby

A satirical comedy--ruthless and heartbreaking, but a comedy nonetheless. The movie is also about disintegration and the possibility of rebirth. In other words, it’s a small miracle.

Austin Chronicle Kimberley Jones

It packs a hefty emotional wallop.

Boston Globe Ty Burr

This is one cinematic novella that stays with you for quite a while.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

All I know is, it is better to be the whale than the squid. Whales inspire major novels.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

If the kids give the movie its momentum, its fascination comes from a more static source -- the father.

Philadelphia Inquirer Carrie Rickey

Insightful, funny-sad memoir of divorce, intellectual style and emotional rebirth.

USA Today Claudia Puig

The young actors' performances are particularly haunting.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

Without jerking tears or reducing the acid content of his wit, Baumbach's humane movie gets under your skin.

New York Daily News Jami Bernard

A great divorce movie. It's also one of the canniest comedies ever made about a certain kind of literary pretension.

New York Post Kyle Smith

With its dry wit and all-star household, Baumbach's movie resembles Wes Anderson's "The Royal Tenenbaums" without the heavy whimsy.

Seattle Post-Intelligencer Paula Nechak

Daniels gives a career-best performance.

Washington Post Desson Thomson

This story doesn't just belong to them anymore. This richly observed, sometimes heartbreaking movie has become ours, too.

The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin

It's an unflinchingly raw and honest look at a family splitting apart, and it seldom strikes an unconvincing or inauthentic note. Though it surveys rocky adolescent emotional terrain from the safe distance of adulthood, The Squid And The Whale still resonates with the sting of a fresh wound.

Village Voice J. Hoberman

Tender, cruel, and very funny, Baumbach's fourth feature turns family history into a sort of urban myth.

Film Threat Pete Vonder Haar

Baumbach crams an impressive amount of characterization and humor into 82 minutes.

LA Weekly Paul Malcolm

Baumbach weds his verbal gifts to a fresh visual acuity that brings layers of rich detail to a portrait of a family coping, poorly, with self-inflicted change.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

The implied critique of progressive, bohemian parenting is devastating--wise and nuanced, with the painful hilarity of truth.

Empire Adam Smith

Painful, funny and beautifully acted, by Jeff Daniels particularly, who gives a career-best performance.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Jeff Daniels, an actor who is often relegated to inoffensive supporting roles, surprises with the power and intensity of his performance.

San Francisco Chronicle Mick LaSalle

An entertaining and perceptive film with one big problem.

The New Republic Stanley Kauffmann

All four of the roles are written with pungency. There is even an implication that the two adults realize the triteness of the situation and that they--the characters, not Baumbach--want to speak from inner sources, not from a script. Baumbach pulls this off with some sting and wit.

Salon.com Stephanie Zacharek

Has so much going for it -- including intelligent performances that mesh beautifully, and a keen understanding of how seemingly small moments can rattle the foundations of families -- that you walk away from it feeling it should add up to more.

Slate David Edelstein

The hole in the film isn't a reflection on Linney's performance. It's as if Baumbach, his hands full of oily whale blubber, didn't want to deal with an exploding sac of squid ink. And who can blame him, really?

Variety Scott Foundas

Pic makes up in strong performances and wry observation what it sometimes lacks in narrative drive. Result is a perceptive (and unexpectedly moving) portrait of lives in crisis.

TV Guide Maitland McDonagh

The title refers to a diorama at New York City's American Museum of Natural History that depicts a whale and a giant squid locked in mortal combat.

Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern

The absence of any nuance in the father's character bespeaks the filmmaker's unwillingness to trust his audience. Making the movie may have been therapeutic for him, but I can't say the same about watching it.

The average user rating for this movie is 7.3 (out of 10) based on 243 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

Steve gave it a2:
I couldn't say it any better than D.A. Floyd, but I'd add the charge that the director depicted sex, both in language (cunts?) and action (12-year-old masturbation, girl-friend giving a handjob to boyfriend?) than was necessary. Is this child of the 60s turning into a prude in his old age? Don't think so. Just keep on asking why sex keeps on getting so much more emphasis than the story needs. As for example: in Babel, the Mexican nanny being groped at her son's wedding; in Nowhere in Africa, the husband and wife making love, both totally nude. How does either contribute to the story? In contrast, and to show how sex and passion can be better portrayed, see The Illusionist. What's my point, finally, if not already clear? That what makes movies like Squid-Whale gripping is the voyeurism that titillates us. Without it, just another (yes, well acted) flick.

Adam K. gave it an8:
it is hard to describe this movie..not for a couple having a bad week...but a great movie...you are sympathetic to this group but at the same time are kind of bewildered by their behavior. The parents are completely screwed up and they are passing down their problems to their kids...a great interplay of characters carrying out this story..netflix it.

Hal B. gave it an8:
The reviews of Dierdre B (10) and DA Floyd (2) both make excellent points. This is a very good film about the impact of divorce (and narcissism) on children AND it amounts to "self-indulgent scab-ripping"! But how many film-makers can be said to NOT be self-indulgent in putting their vision, their art, their peronsal stories on the big screen? As to D.A.'s conclusion that there's nothing in this film to "redeem the painful experience", I simply disagree. Even when the topic is painful, good acting and screenwriting and direction can result in a truly remarkable and moving film. And the soundtrack is excellent, to boot.

Cami K. gave it a10:
Brilliant, superbly acted, and rivetting throughout.

Roland G gave it a10:
A troubling and visceral movie that had me squirming all over my seat and peeking through fingers in parts. Uncomfortable to watch with thoroughly unpleasant characters. However overall it was a beautiful and ultimately satisfying piece of filmmaking which presented the difficulties of dealing with divorce and in particular the enormous difficulties in dealing with narcissistic parents. The acting was first rate. Recommended only if you are able to deal with feeling thoroughly uncomfortable and are able to look deeper than the superficial layers of a movie.

dade gave it a10:
Moving, troubled and beautiful. I still can't get over the fact that the father was played by the same guy who was forced to lock himself in the bathroom in Dumb and Dumber after accidentally consuming a large amount of laxative. Jeff Daniels was amazing.

gave it a6:
Two-dimmensional characters.

Squid and the Whale, The Samuel Goldwyn Films

Squid and the Whale, The
Samuel Goldwyn Films