Skip to main content

The Squid and the Whale (2005)

The Squid and the Whale. Feature film. (2005, 81 mins) IMDB

...An American film that isn't an American film....

T

he Squid and the Whale is not an American movie even though it was written and directed by an American. The principal actors are American. It was filmed in the US and it centres on an American family. Of course it's American, but it isn't. It's the most European American film I've ever watched. It's not a Hollywood film. Not even close. It's therefore an independent film, yes, but most independent American films (see Sundance) want to be Hollywood films. They just don't have the budget to pull it off.

So why is it not an American film? There's a whisper of a narrative with an ending that is abrupt and odd. It doesn't have the feel of a classically structured story. And when it's over, we have more questions than answers. That's neither good or bad. It's just not what we expect when we watch an American, especially a Hollywood movie.

The film is about a novelist, writer, who can't sell his works so he pretends to write and works as a professor. He's pretentious and high-brow. He sees himself as a literary genius and the market ignores them. I guess he's not familiar with Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

He's married with two teenaged boys. It's been a long marriage, but she's been cheating on him. But has he been cheating on her? We're never quite sure, but I say yes.

They separate. She keeps the existing home. He moves into a dump. The two boys go back and forth between the two homes.

Maybe they'll get back together. Maybe they won't. Maybe he'll find a new agent and sell another novel, but maybe not.

Maybe his screwed-up sons will turn out fine or maybe they won't.

There are no answers in this film. Just observations of this family as they live their lives.

The film is interesting as we get to know each of the characters, but once we do, we realize we don't want to spend time with them. Their lives are too pedestrian.

As for the title, perhaps there is a link to some other cultural body besides the museum, but I don't know what it is and therefore I not sure what it means. The one son has nightmares about a museum display where a giant squid wraps its limps around a whale, lunch is served, and therefore. it could simply mean he's terrified because life is tough. Maybe you can tell me.

Posted 2009/02/14 at 19h34ET in Movie Commentary.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Words: Licence— License

Sunday, August 26, 2012 Easy to miss this one. LICENCE—Always a noun. He has a licence to collect alien spaceships. British spelling variation. LICENSE—A noun. A verb. U.S. spelling variation for noun. The federal Bureau for Interplanetary Affairs is empowered to license individuals, corporations and charities. Licence License Licence to Kill by John Gardner Artistic License by Julie Hyzy Posted 2012/08/26 at 18h24ET in Words , Writing .

If Only We Could Agree

Monday, June 11, 2012 ... have you been accused of misspelling a word you know is correct ... S usanne O’Leary wrote an interesting article on her experience with the variations of the English language in different countries. You know the obvious ones like colour with or without a “u” but less obvious ones like travelled versus traveled. Growing up in Sweden she learnt English in school—the UK variation. In publishing her books, she read reviews where she was criticized for improper spelling. False accusations as it turns out. While I write tire and cozy, it’s not incorrect to write tyre or cosy. Same language. Both accepted. Just different. You can read her write-up here along with the numerous comments posted by readers. I found it interesting, but that’s me. As a Canadian I deal with this issue everyday. I feel her pain when she’s criticized for something based on ignorance. No fun. I was told by a boss that “data are” isn’t correct. It should be “data is.” Read

Days 9-108: Writing a Novel—The Deep Blue Hold

November 25th, 2016 to March 5, 2017 Note: Unedited writings from my notebook for this novel. Square bracket items represent added comments. At 15:53 Office ... And so began a three month odyssey away from writing this novel, The Deep Blue Hold. ... W herein I try to explain why I stopped working on this novel. The shortest answer is I gave up. The short explanation is I struggle with mental health issues (MDD, GAD, PTSD) that paralyse me at times. When it happens, I’m not able to do much of anything. Don’t want to do anything and that includes things one might expect to enjoy. For a while I spent time trying to create some thirty-second videos that would play a word puzzle like a crossword. Here’s the clue. Here’s the blank spaces. And after an interval, one of the letters would appear until all the letters appear. A bit of a crossword puzzle in that sometimes you come to a word where crossover words give you certain letters and you have to fill in the rest. A