'Squid' demonstrates compassionate story of damaged family

By CHRIS HEWITT
St. Paul Pioneer Press
The parents in the divorce drama "The Squid and the Whale" have Ph.Ds in the humanities, but they flunked basic humanity.
Bernard, a professor, and Joan, a novelist, split up at the beginning of the film and spend the next 90 minutes foisting their neuroses and insecurities on their two sons. In language that is as frank as it is wrongheaded, Bernard (Jeff Daniels) and Joan (Laura Linney) seem to be having some kind of hostility tournament, and the losers are their sons, since every sentence their parents speak is loaded with nasty meaning.
Heck, every wall decoration is loaded since, when Bernard moves out, he decorates his new digs with a movie poster. What movie? "The Mother and the Whore."
Growing up
It's a coming-of-age story, but it's not just the kids who need to grow up. The secret to enjoying "The Squid and the Whale," which is witty, frank and merciless, is recognizing that all four people deserve our sympathy because they are all damaged. There's even a weird kind of suspense in the movie, centering on the question, "Will these boys be able to figure out how real human beings behave, since their parents are of no help?"
There's also a weird kind of suspense about the title, which refers to a museum diorama of a whale devouring a squid. Is Joan devouring Bernard or vice versa? It's open to interpretation, although I'd say the parents are the whale and the children are the squid. For evidence, I would offer the fact that "Squid" writer/director Noah Baumbach based the movie on his own childhood and that he has become the sort of human being who found a way to depict his wounded parents with wit and compassion.
In other words, the hopeful but unsentimental epilogue of "The Squid and the Whale" is that the squid wriggled free. Somehow, he survived.