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The Squid and the Whale

2005

Noah Baumbach

Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline ...

6.6

8,074

Drama. Comedy Park Slope, Brooklyn, 1986. When Walt Berkman, an impressionable 16-year-old, passes off the Pink Floyd song "Hey You" as his original work and performs it at a high school talent show, he's perfectly content with his rationale. "I felt I could have written it so the fact that it was already written was kind of a technicality." At the same time, his 12-year-old brother Frank drinks beer and wonders openly about his mother's sex life. ... [+]

	Author	Review
United States	A. O. Scott The New York Times	"[It] is both sharply comical and piercingly sad"	POS
United States	Kenneth Turan Los Angeles Times	"A remarkable film! (...) Incisive, heartfelt and painfully funny"	POS
United States	Peter Travers Rolling Stone	"Without jerking tears or reducing the acid content of his wit, Baumbach’s humane movie gets under your skin (…) Rating: ★★★½ (out of 4)"	POS
United States	Jonathan Rosenbaum Chicago Reader	"The implied critique of progressive, bohemian parenting is devastating—wise and nuanced"	POS
United Kingdom	Peter Bradshaw The Guardian	"It has the authentic feeling of real-life messiness, humiliation and shame, though supercharged with fictional black comedy (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Nathan Rabin AV Club	"Baumbach creates scenes that feel ripped wholesale from the most agonizing moments of his young life. It’s an unflinchingly raw and honest look at a family splitting apart"	POS
United Kingdom	Adam Smith Empire	"Painful, funny and beautifully acted, by Jeff Daniels particularly, who gives a career-best performance (…) Rating: ★★★★ (out of 5)"	POS
United States	Nick Schager Slant	"Painfully sincere and delightfully silly (...) [It boasts] nuanced performances from his superlative cast (…) Rating: ★★★ (out of 5)"	POS

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