The Squid and the Whale

You know that time your dad decided to meet your first girlfriend, and he couldn’t stop talking about genitalia? No? Then you’re much better off than Walt Berkman (Jesse Eisenberg), whose overweening and pretentious father, Bernard (Jeff Daniels), is a semi-famous novelist and full-fledged dick. When his wife decides she’s had enough of Bernard’s need to speak ex cathedra on all matters of literature, ethics and sex, she starts seeing other people who don’t talk as though George Bernard Shaw has crawled up their butts. This leads to a bitter divorce and a hilariously painful film. Writer/director Noah Baumbach draws from his own life to create this layered, and vaguely evil movie that manages to expose the blindness and cruelty of academic elitism, and the cruelty and blindness of being a teenager. Fun, but not for the whole family.