The Squid and the Whale

Well, my school finally unblocked Blogger, so why not celebrate by telling you about a movie a saw recently? The Squid and the Whale is getting plenty of rave reviews, and I think it's mostly for good reason. It's a solid film with a great screenplay carried out by good actors. It was written by Wes Anderson's good buddy Noah whatshisface, and it's pretty apparent. It has the retro feel with the dry humor that makes you laugh and simultaneously wonder why you're laughing at such depressing material. Speaking of material, it got a little heavier and more disturbing than I was expecting. It tells the story of two brothers dealing with their parents divorce, and a lot of sexual stuff comes along with it, which wasn't all that pleasant. The theme that struck me most, the thing that made me really like the movie, was about trying to be who we want to be rather than who we are. The father in the movie is an artsy-fartsy intellectual writer and he's training his son in all of his opinionated pretentious ways. Thus, the boy has all these opinions about things he knows nothing about. At one point in the movie, his mother tries to give him advice, and he says, "But that's not who I see myself as." She says, "But what if it's who you are?" And he doesn't quite get it and repeats, "But it's not who I see myself as." It's something that is being struggled with throughout the movie. I thought it was a powerful illustration of our pride and desire to be better than everyone else, and the exhaustion that comes when we try to keep up a front of being someone we are not. I don't know if this film deserves all the hype it seems to be getting, but it is definitely very well done and has some great things to think about, with some good ol' dry humor to boot.