The Squid and the Whale

Lynn Worsham's class was canceled last night, so I decided to take myself (and Clara, of course) to the movies. The Squid and the Whale was playing at the Normal Theater, where admission is $5 and all snacks are a buck.

I love, am obsessed with, dysfunctional family dramas, so this was the movie for me. Jeff Daniels was fantastic as a dried-up writer whose only source of self-esteem is putting his wife down. There were moments when you just wanted to reach up and slap him, and his oldest son, Walt, is taking after him in scary ways. Daniels' character was so pathetic. But I'm not a movie reviewer. What I really want to say is that there's this moment, very early in the film, when the whole family is driving home from a tennis game. You see the parents from the kids' perspective and, in that moment, there's something about Laura Linney's ponytail that is just so sad. You see that these are just two people tired of one another, you imagine them younger, filled with promise and happiness and young children, and you realize--well it made me realize, anyway--just how arbitrary it all is. Coupling. Marriage. Children. Moments like that when the people aren't members of a family--Mom, Dad--but you can see them as the individuals they once were and you wonder how they got to this point. And you know they're wondering how they got to this point.

Of course, the armchair psychologist in me knows that this is me shaping that moment to help me understand my own issues. But it was a powerful moment nonetheless.

Go see it.