| I've been a Jeff Daniels fan for a long | | | | malfunctioning family unit where the little |
| time.This is yet another great Jeff Daniels | | | | Frank starts drinking beer when he is home |
| movie based on a very strong script by Noah | | | | alone and displays sex-related anomalies at |
| Baumbach who also directed this family drama. | | | | school and home. Walt, on the other hand, |
| Bernie Berkman (Daniels) is an English | | | | takes a different route to his neurosis and |
| professor married to another writer Joan | | | | tries plagiarism to score a quick success at |
| (delivered with great texture by Laura | | | | his high school's talent contest.Bernie |
| Linney). They have two sons Walt (Chicken) | | | | himself loses his rudder as well and |
| (Jesse Eisenberg) and Frank (Pinkie) Berkman | | | | vacillates between his desire to keep away |
| (Owen Kline) who go through their own | | | | from Joan, on the one hand, and his jealousy |
| breakdown episodes when they hear that their | | | | with her literary success and boyfriends on |
| mom and dad are separating.The opening tennis | | | | the other. He also starts an affair with a |
| scene in which the four are playing a nasty | | | | female student of his who rents a room at his |
| game of doubles (Bernie keeps hitting Joan | | | | new house and flirts with his son as |
| with stiff volleys) is a good metaphor for | | | | well.There is no quick and neat solution to |
| where their relationship is headed. On the | | | | this modern drama set in Brooklyn in the 80s. |
| one side is Bernie and Walt, and on the | | | | There is an attempt at reconciliation but no |
| other, Joan and Frank.Nobody seems to be | | | | one knows how to get the toothpaste back into |
| blameless but Joan probably contributed more | | | | the tube again. Thus it is very appropriate |
| to the breakup than anybody else with her | | | | that the film ends with Walt's visit to the |
| illicit love affair with a neighbor. During | | | | museum of natural history where there is an |
| their separation she beds her son's tennis | | | | immense replica of a whale battling with a |
| coach (a perfectly cast happy-go-lucky Bill | | | | giant squid (and thus the film's title). |
| Baldwin). Soon we have a seriously | | | | |