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The Squid and the Whale (2006)

tomatometer

93

Average Rating: 7.9/10
Reviews Counted: 138
Fresh: 129 | Rotten: 9

This is a piercingly honest, acidly witty look at divorce and its impact on a family.

100

Average Rating: 8.3/10
Critic Reviews: 36
Fresh: 36 | Rotten: 0

This is a piercingly honest, acidly witty look at divorce and its impact on a family.

audience

77

liked it
Average Rating: 3.7/5
User Ratings: 71,775

My Rating

Movie Info

Two boys learn the hard way about how a marriage falls apart in this independent comedy drama. Bernard (Jeff Daniels) is a novelist whose career has gone into a slow decline as he spends more time teaching and less time writing. His wife, Joan (Laura Linney), meanwhile, has recently begun publishing her own work to widespread acclaim, which only increases the growing tension between them. One day, Bernard and Joan's two sons -- 16-year-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and 12-year-old Frank (Owen

R, 1 hr. 21 min.

Art House & International, Drama

Noah Baumbach

Mar 14, 2006

$7.1M

Samuel Goldwyn Films

Cast

All Critics (153) | Top Critics (37) | Fresh (135) | Rotten (9) | DVD (20)

A wry exercise in acute observation and emotional distancing, Noah Baumbach's The Squid and the Whale represents what's best in autobiographical filmmaking.

January 5, 2006 Comment
Hollywood Reporter
Top Critic IconTop Critic

The Squid and the Whale is essentially about how we grow up by absorbing what is useful in our parents and forgiving what is not.

December 6, 2005 Full Review Source: Chicago Sun-Times | Comment
Chicago Sun-Times
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Don't look now, but Jeff Daniels' days as 'the other Jeff' may be coming to an end.

November 23, 2005 Full Review Source: Arizona Republic | Comment
Arizona Republic
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Hilarious, harrowing and heartbreaking, The Squid and the Whale is one of the best movies of the year.

November 17, 2005 Full Review Source: Atlanta Journal-Constitution | Comment
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Top Critic IconTop Critic

A brutal study in distracted parenting.

November 4, 2005 Full Review Source: Orlando Sentinel | Comment
Orlando Sentinel
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Brevity is, indeed, the soul of wit, and in this case, wit barely starts to describe the value of this dead-on, full-of-life motion picture.

November 4, 2005 Full Review Source: Houston Chronicle | Comment
Houston Chronicle
Top Critic IconTop Critic

Try as he might to cut to the frayed nerves of a scene, Baumbach lets cuteness get in the way

September 1, 2009 Full Review Source: CinePassion | Comment
CinePassion

Well-acted film about a family coming apart. Adults only.

July 10, 2008 Full Review Source: Common Sense Media | Comment
Common Sense Media

Like the diorama in New York's Museum of Natural History from which the film's title is derived, The Squid And The Whale depicts deep-seated conflict in a manner that is at once exquisitely lifelike and mesmerisingly awful to look at.

August 6, 2007 Full Review Source: Eye for Film | Comment
Eye for Film

Un retrato honesto y revelador de la descomposición de un matrimonio, visto desde la perspectiva de los hijos adolescentes.

August 11, 2006 Full Review Source: Uruguay Total | Comment
Uruguay Total

...Baumbach's most emotionally potent and visually coherent film to date.

August 5, 2006 Full Review Source: All Movie Guide | Comment
All Movie Guide

Doesn't break much new ground in terms of parental misconduct or adolescent sexual confusion.

May 4, 2006 Full Review Source: Metromix.com | Comments (2)
Metromix.com
More Critic Reviews

Audience Reviews for The Squid and the Whale

With the greatest amount of respect, I would like to compliment this film on being, essentially, "Woody Allen light". It is a finely observed independent dramedy that is a semi-autobiographichal story about how a divorce effects primarily two siblings, but their bickering also.The story is set in Brooklyn in 1986.

November 14, 2011
cosmo313
Chris Weber

Super Reviewer

Walt Berkman: It's like... we were pals then... we'd do things together... we'd look at the knight armor at the Met. The scary fish at the Natural History Museum. I was always afraid of the squid and whale fighting. I can only look at it with my hands in front of my face. "Joint Custody Blows."The Squid and the Whale

December 7, 2011
blkbomb
Melvin White

Super Reviewer

    1. Bernard Berkman: What is it about high school, that you read all the worst books by good writers?
    – Submitted by Richard D (9 months ago)
    1. Walt Berkman: It's like... we were pals then... we'd do things together... we'd look at the knight armor at the Met. The scary fish at the Natural History Museum. I was always afraid of the squid and whale fighting. I can only look at it with my hands in front of my face.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)
    1. Frank Berkman: Mom and me versus you and Dad.
    – Submitted by Chris P (9 months ago)

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Foreign Titles

  • Der Tintenfisch und der Wal (DE)
  • Les Berkman se séparent (FR)
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