Genre Guesstimation – The Squid and the Whale (2005)

The idea behind this feature (Genre Guesstimation) is for me to watch a bunch of new movies (or ones that I haven’t seen many times) from the chosen monthly GG genre in order to expand my knowledge of movies within that particular genre.

This month’s genre has been chosen by me and we will be reviewing our favorite Oscar Nominated or Winning Movies.

Please get me your submissions by the 25th of Mar by sending them to andtheOscargoesto…@movierob.net

Try to think out of the box!

Let’s see if I felt that this movie would be worthy of being in the company of my others favorite movies in the genre of Oscar Nominated or Winning Movies……….

“What is it about high school, you read all the worst books by good writers.” – Bernard Berkman

Number of Times Seen – Twice (4 Jun 2006 and 7 Mar 2022)

Brief Synopsis – A teen tries to deal with the breakup of his parents and how that affects the entire family.

My Take on it – This is a movie that I enjoyed quite a lot when I first saw it and wanted to rewatch it to refresh my memory.

It was nominated for Best original Screenplay but lost to eventual Best Picture Winner Crash (2004).

Rewatching this, I enjoyed it quite a lot because the dialogue and interactions between the characters is so engaging and realistic the whole way through.

The cast is superb with Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney and Jesse Eisenberg all helping to make their characters feel so three dimensional largely due to their mistakes and character flaws along the way.

The story moves along at a great pace, but towards the end tapers off and instead of giving the viewer something more powerful, it just ends which is quite a shame because of the vast potential that was wasted here.

Recommended!

MovieRob’s Favorite Trivia – Anna Paquin, who plays Jeff Daniels’s love interest, played his daughter nine years earlier in Fly Away Home (1996) (in which Paquin’s character hatches a nest full of abandoned goose eggs and then teaches the resulting baby geese to fly). Jeff Daniels said that it made filming a bit awkward for both of them. In one interview, when asked how he and Paquin got through filming their intimate scenes, he said “we tried not to think about…you know, geese.” (From IMDB)

Genre Grandeur Worthy? – Almost. Great character study, but the story is too short and doesn’t manage to be more powerful.

Rating – Globe Worthy (8/10)