The Squid and The Whale

I'm proud to announce that I have a new favourite movie. (Okay as I'm typing this Blogger is furiously redlining the word favourite as if it doesn't exist. I'm just going to write that a few more times just to piss Blogger off. Favourite, favourite, favourite, favourite. It's how the Brits spell it, dumbass, get over it.)

The movie is called The Squid and The Whale by Noah Bachbaum, starring Jesse Eisenberg from the Social Network fame. It's about a dysfunctional family (aren't all good Hollywood films about dysfunctional families?) trying to work things out. It's a straightforward story with intricate details on how a divorce affects children.

The reason I like this movie is because it shows how pretentious it looks when you talk about Dickens' novels, how ridiculous it is to talk to girls about The Metamorphosis, and how uptight it sounds when you say things like 'kafkaesque'. No, that's not the main theme of the movie. Those are just some literary references littered here and there during the course of the movie, but I pride myself on getting jokes and references in movies, whether it's a stupid one liner, or a clin d'oeil to Jean-Luc Godard's A Bout de Souffle. Even when watching Ferris Bueller the other day, as they were visiting the Art Institute of Chicago, I had to pause many times to recall the names of paintings (and their painters) Ferris looked at and gloated to myself when I got everything right.

Another thing I liked about this movie is the very appropriate use of Pink Floyd's Hey You. Of course, I've never been a big fan of Pink Floyd as I find their stuff intensely depressing, but over the years I've collected quite a number of their songs on my iTunes and somehow can never find the courage to skip them whenever my iTunes was playing one at random, so they've kinda grown on me (don't tell this to my ex-roommate though, because I'm still pretending to hate Pink Floyd whenever he's around).

As far as I'm concerned, parents getting divorced might just be the worst preventable thing that can happen to a child (I had to add 'preventable' because I know some might say "I don't think so. Your parents could die in a plane crash." Well that's definitely worse, but it's somewhat not preventable or at least not something your parents had control of, so it doesn't count.) When I'm getting married, I'll make sure it's something that will last forever so that my kids will not have to go through our divorce. It's ambitious, and bit stupid considering you can never predict what the future holds, but it certainly is not impossible. There's a reason why people vow 'till death do us part' at their wedding. It's because - as far-fetched as it sounds - it's still a plausible idea.

I recommend this movie to everyone. Although I do have one critique: Jesse Eisenberg can act, but only as himself. He's almost totally devoid of emotion which, luckily for him, is what the characters he's played often required. I do think he's talented, but somehow I feel like he needs some range in his acting. It's easy to play yourself in every film you do, but it's not always impressive.