The Squid And The Whale vs Me And You And Everyone We Know

I guess I'm torn: On the one hand, I love to be challenged by movie characters. The more frustrating their behavior, the more believable they become. I can't handle the pat, simple emotions of, say, most Robin Williams movies; I feel manipulated and often a little grossed out. I don't have to like all the characters in a movie. I don't have to approve of their actions and I don't need a tidy moral at the end. But come on, The Squid and the Whale, throw me a bone.

The Squid and the Whale feels a little bit like a documentary following families with a champion speller, or maybe a violin prodigy. It's set in the mid-1980s, and the apartments and wardrobes are so right on they seem more found than designed. Likewise, no one in the family is overly camera-friendly, they aren't the bohemian-chic intellectuals you might find in Woody Allen, rather they're make-up free and plainly dressed. The characters in The Squid and the Whale would prefer to impress you with words, especially if those words might shut you up while The Squid and the Whale continues to talk about itself.

The Berkman family is getting divorced. It's one of those separations with not just the parents splitting, but the kids taking sides and everyone suffering. The father, Bernard (Jeff Daniels) is fairly insufferable, a professor and formerly celebrated author who compensates for his current lack of success by taking his personality into negative digits and basically behaving like a pompous ass. Of course, when he was successful, he probably behaved the exact same way, but it's funny how failure makes being a jackass less appealing. On the other hand, his wife Joan is newly successful, with a book on its way to publication and an article in the latest New Yorker. She's cheating, because she knows she deserves happiness and love. Whether or not it's possible to get that from Bernard is undetermined, but he's definitely not earning love and happiness in return, so why risk it.

Their kids, Frank and Walt ( Owen Kline and Jessie Eisenberg, respectively), get caught in the middle of the split, which is more a battle of words and wits; Bernard prides him self on being an intellectual, and Joan, probably being smarter, is often put in the position of being Bernard's lesser. Their older son, Walt, has taken Bernard's side, which is probably not in his best interest. Bernard thinks he should play the field, and encourages him to be more of a snob about books and movies. As a result, he insults and belittles his girlfriend and lies about books he hasn't read. Frank gravitates toward his mother, who is more sensitive and encourages fairness and art. Both sons have awkward sexual awakenings in the movie, neither helped much by the presence of Lili (Anna Paquin), a co-ed living at Bernard's new house.

The Squid and the Whale was directed and written by Noah Baumbeck, no doubt based on his own experiences as a boy dealing with the divorce of his parents. In fact, there seems to be little dramatic license taken at all; The Squid and the Whale has little in the way of story arc, just kind of existing for a while and then ending abruptly. At less than ninety minutes, The Squid and the Whale seems oddly short for such a rich character study, but honestly, I'm not sure how much more in the way of snobbish insults and pubescent sexual missteps I was willing to sit for.

The upshot is that the acting in The Squid and the Whale is phenomenal. Laura Linney is her usual perfect mix of poise and nervous energy. Her Joan is a borderline wreck, but she knows she's smarter than most people she deals with, so the breakdown can wait. Jeff Daniels is so convincing as the arrogant, intellectual phony Bernard that more than once during the movie I had to remind myself that he wasn't William Hurt. Both kids are great, especially Kline, who garners more of our sympathy, but also creates an oddball character of a kid. He's a closet alcoholic, a foul-mouthed sore loser, and a budding pervert, all before age thirteen. He'll likely get over the divorce and become a happy, well-adjusted, artistic member of society. Maybe by then he and his family won't make me so uncomfortable.

Like The Squid and the Whale, Me and You and Everyone We Know is a movie about divorce and artists and teens shakily navigating their sexualities. The difference is that I felt for every single character. When they misspoke, or lashed out, or hurt each other, I was wincing, hoping it would turn around. Me and You and Everyone We Know goes to no lengths at all to remind me of pretentious college professors or bad relationships or the terrors of puberty. Instead, it just reaches for humanity, in all its messy forms, and finds it, over and over, beautifully. The characters infuriated and confused and embarrassed me just like in The Squid and the Whale, but in this case, I never wanted them to leave.

Richard (John Hawkes, fantastic) is a newly-divorced father of two boys, trying to make a life in a crappy apartment on his salary selling shoes. His only friend at work is a perv who spends his downtime hitting on two teen sisters in the neighborhood, and his only shot at a new relationship is seemingly with Christine (Miranda July), a caregiver (she drives a taxi for the elderly) and performance artist. Christine is what you might call odd; she's got a loose, sarcastic streak, but also a nervous social awkwardness that recalls every Molly Shannon character rolled into one. Me and You and Everyone We Know doesn't have a single dishonest or uninteresting performance (the kids are heartbreaking), but Christine steals the show. Miranda July--who also wrote and directed the movie with more knowledge of simple interactions between ordinary people than practically anyone ever. It's like if Happiness were truly happy--has created a character of such uncommon immediacy I sat up every time she was on screen. You never know what she'll say or do, and it's highly unlikely that she does either. Is it too late for Miranda July to film Napoleon Dynamite as a one-woman show? It's just so good, funny and genuine. Me and You and Everyone We Know is a find; it's one of those movies you'll watch (I hope) and tell friends about, and half of them will say it's weird, which you know means you're really on to something. It's likely, I suppose, that I'll see a movie I enjoy more than Me and You and Everyone We Know this year, but it's near impossible that I'll see anything this original, human or true.

The Squid and the Whale: B
Me and You and Everyone We Know: A