The Squid and the Whale
Brief Synopsis
Cast & Crew
Noah Baumbach
Owen Kline
Jeff Daniels
Laura Linney
Jesse Eisenberg
William Baldwin
Film Details
Technical Specs
Synopsis
In 1986, in Brooklyn, New York, a Berkman family tennis game ends unpleasantly when Bernard, a noted author and professor, lobs a powerful ball that hits his wife, Joan. Joan stalks angrily off the court, stung by the ball and Bernard's aggressive behavior. The next morning, their twelve-year-old son Frank discovers that Bernard spent the night on the sofa bed. Although Frank adores his mother, his sixteen-year-old brother Walt admires Bernard, and dismisses as amateur Joan's recent work as a writer. Bernard, who values intellect above any other quality, brings Walt to a university writing class he teaches, where Walt is exposed to a sexually explicit story written by a seductive twenty-four-year-old student, Lili. While driving home, Bernard hails Lili's story as risky, post-modern writing and urges Walt to read the work of Franz Kafka, whom Bernard champions as his own literary predecessor. Bernard and Walt bond further after seeing Joan talking intimately with an unfamiliar man on the street; Bernard becomes suspicious and Walt's contempt for his mother deepens. Following a particularly nasty argument, Bernard and Joan announce they are getting a divorce and that the boys, and their cat, will evenly split their time between two homes. Both boys are distraught, but Walt blames his mother for the split. When Bernard introduces the boys to his ramshackle new house, which he describes as "elegant," it is evident he has given little thought to their tastes or comfort. Tension flares between the boys after Frank complains about the house and defends Joan, and a resentful Walt briefly and painfully pins Frank to the floor. Walt's resentment toward Joan is vindicated when Bernard reveals that Joan has been having affairs for years, although Bernard believes she left him because his recent work has been unsuccessful. Despite Joan's attempt to discuss the matter with her son, Walt refuses to continue staying with her. Meanwhile, Frank's behavior has deteriorated: he is secretly obsessed with sex, drinks beer and after masturbating in the school library, spreads his semen on a bookshelf. Walt's days are complicated by the discovery that his mother once slept with his friend Otto's father. At the same time, Walt, who ignorantly parrots what his father says about books and writers, becomes involved with his first girl friend, Sophie Greenberg. Bernard, already parsimonious and insensitive, becomes more self-absorbed than ever after receiving a rejection letter from a publisher. He shows little interest when Frank is sick, and insists on playing an overly competitive ping-pong game with him, during which Bernard advises Frank, who aspires to be a tennis pro like his teacher Ivan, that he is in danger of becoming a philistine. One evening, Walt witnesses the warmth of a normal family when Sophie invites him to dinner with her family. However, familial normalcy slips even farther from Walt's grasp after Bernard invites Lili, on whom Walt has a mild crush, to rent a room in his house. Bernard further fails both his sons in one night by leaving Frank alone at home while he takes Walt and Sophie to see Blue Velvet , an embarrassingly sexually perverse film, after which Bernard accepts Sophie's money to help pay for dinner. Frank runs to his mother's house and discovers she is having an affair with Ivan, whom he idolizes. Soon after, Bernard and Lili start having an affair, while on the same night, Walt and Sophie, both virgins, begin exploring sex. When Walt later wins a prize at the school talent contest by playing a Pink Floyd song that he claims he wrote, his parents, unaware that the song was plagiarized, are proud of his apparent achievement. Nevertheless, Walt is so insulting to Joan that she slaps him. Bernard also receives a blow when, over dinner, Lili tells him that an excerpt from Joan's soon-to-be published novel has appeared in The New Yorker magazine. After dinner, a confused Walt lashes out at Sophie and ends their relationship. Some time later, Joan and Ivan go out of town, expecting that Bernard will pick up Frank for the weekend, but Bernard forgets about him and takes Walt and Lili to State University of New York at Binghamton, where he speaks at a poorly attended reading. Completely forgotten, Frank lays out his mother's lingerie, plays with some condoms and throws up after getting drunk. Joan and Bernard soon must confront how deeply their divorce has affected their sons after the principals at both schools call them in for conferences; one about Frank's masturbation and the other concerning Walt's musical deceit. Each parent blames the other. However, Bernard reluctantly agrees for Walt to see a school therapist, who helps Walt finally to comprehend how much he misses his mother by prodding him to fondly recall their special closeness when he was a boy, particularly when she would quell his fear about an exhibit of a squid and a whale locked in combat at the American Museum of Natural History. His father, notably, was always absent. Walt returns to Bernard's house, but after encountering Bernard attempting to force himself on Lili, Walt leaves and wanders the neighborhood alone. He eventually goes to see Joan, and after admitting his regret about breaking up with Sophie, they have an honest discussion. They are interrupted by Bernard, who makes a disingenuous offer at reconciliation, which Joan responds to with laughter. When Bernard angrily vows to fight for full custody, Joan claims he only wanted partial custody because it is less expensive than paying full child support. A stunned Walt reluctantly agrees to return to Bernard's house after Frank refuses to go back, and Frank sweetly offers Walt temporary custody of their cat. However, the cat leaps out of Walt's arms and hides under a parked car. Bernard tries to grab him, but is distracted by a police officer ticketing his double-parked auto, and the cat escapes again. Ivan arrives just as Bernard collapses from an apparent heart attack and Ivan and Walt ride with Bernard when he is taken away in an ambulance. In the morning, Bernard tells Walt that he collapsed from exhaustion, not a heart attack. When Walt reveals he does not want to return to Bernard's house, Bernard admits he is hurt and insists that Walt has no choice in the matter. Bernard attempts to cajole Walt, and although they share a warm moment, a distrusting Walt abandons his father at the hospital without saying goodbye. Walt then runs to the Museum of Natural History, where he gazes intently at the squid and whale exhibit.
Director
Noah Baumbach
Cast
Owen Kline
Jeff Daniels
Laura Linney
Jesse Eisenberg
William Baldwin
David Benger
Anna Paquin
Molly Barton
Bo Berkman
Matthew Kaplan
Simone Kaplan
Matthew Kirsch
Daniella Markowicz
Elizabeth Meriwether
Ben Schrank
Amy Srebnick
Josh Srebnick
Emma Straub
Alan Wilks
James Hamilton
Adam Rose
Henry Glovinsky
Eli Gelb
Halley Feiffer
Wayne Lawson
Michael Santiago
Juan Torriente
Patricia Towers
Peggy Gormley
Peter Newman
Greta Kline
Melissa Meyer
Benjamin Smolen
Michael Countryman
Alexandra Daddario
Nico Baumbach
Maryann Plunkett
Hector Otero
Ken Leung
Jo Yang
Crew
Bryan Adams
Douglas Aibel
Michael Altman
Wes Anderson
Bob Andres
Bobby Andres
Evelina Andres
Reverge Anselmo
Miranda Bailey
Allison Barton
Donna Bascom
Nico Baumbach
Noah Baumbach
Richard Beaver
Daniel Beers
Nils Benson
Stacy Bissell
Johannes Brahms
Costanza Theodoli Braschi
Shaun Brennan
Jason Bruno
Jason Buim
Jeff Butcher
Allan Byer
Rachel Chancey
Franke Christoph
Sandra Chwialkowski
William J. Clayton
Charlie Corwin
Robert Covelman
Mei Lai Hippisley Coxe
Gimardi Cueto
Jennifer Dehghan
Robert Dorough
Jim Dunbar
Erich Eilenberger
George Elias
Massoumeh Emami
Mark Filip
Kevin Flynn
Walter Foote
Perri B. Frank
Edgar W. Froese
Michael Fucci
Diego Garrido
Barker Gerard
Lisa Marie Gleeson
Lewis Goldstein
Hans Graffunder
Nancy Griffith
Felix Grisebach
Lori Guidroz
James Hamilton
Maya Hardinge
Madeline Hartling
Chris Hayes
Joe Hobeck
Stephanie Holbrook
Chelsea Horenstein
Bernard James
Markus Janner
Bert Jansch
Greg Johnson
Todd Judson
Keith Kalohelani
Sophie Kaplan
Jim Kelly
Chris Kenneally
Scott Kincaid
Doug Kofsky
Gabriel Koplowitz
Steve Kornacki
Keith Krinsky
Louis Lapat
Andrew Lauren
Richard Laurenzi
Lacey Leavitt
Tom Lee
Martin Leicht
Taylor Levy
Lars Lindhal
Scott Maher
Patrick Mahoney
Clara Markowicz
Lisa Marzolf
Anna Mcgarrigle
Simeon Moore
Cecilia Morelli
Peter Newman
Laura Ng
Ali Norod
Beth O'brien
Ric Ocasek
Christopher S. Parker
Lillian Parker
Jay Peck
Noëlle Penraat
Alyson Perlongo
Storn Peterson
Britta Phillips
John E. A. Phillips
Angelo Pina
Carla Pisarro
Randall Poster
David Pultz
Mike Raisler
Lou Reed
Oliver Refson
Gay Riedel
Anne Ross
Jennifer M. Roth
Jennifer M. Roth
Dave Rudolph
Jennifer Russomanno
Johannes Schmoelling
Deidre Schrowang
Deidre Schrowang
John Schwartz
Adam Shakinovsky
Douglas W. Shannon
Leanne Shapton
James Sherman
Julia Shirar
Charles Siegel
Susan Soh
Derek Somaru
Stephen Speers
Daniel Antonio Srebnick
Jason R. Stant
Tim Streeto
Glenn K. Sybesma
Rebecca Taber
Susan Tatom
Ulysses Terrero, T & T Casting
Gerald Tonnegin
Anthony Torre
Ira Paul Turner
Jim Vallance
Alfredo Viteri
Damian Volpe
Loudon Wainwright Iii
Karen Waiton
Dean Wareham
Roger Waters
David Wechsler
Amy Westcott
David Wexler
Eric Yellin
Robert D. Yeoman
Keith Yurevitz
Film Details
Technical Specs
Award Nominations
Best Original Screenplay
Quotes
Trivia
Notes
The film opens with distribution company credits followed by the title credit; all other credits run after the film. The following performers were credited in a brief cast roll, before the full cast credits, in this order: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline, William Baldwin, Halley Feiffer, Anna Paquin. Full cast and character credits were listed in order of appearance. The following dedication appears after the production company credits: "For Mannie." A scene from the 1986, David Lynch-directed picture Blue Velvet, which appeared in the film was provided by MGM Clip+Still, and a scene from the long-running, ABC television series Three's Company was provided by courtesy of DLT Entertainment, Ltd. Numerous individuals and companies are thanked in the ending credits, including directors Peter Bogdanovich and Sofia Coppola, the American Museum of Natural History and the residents of Park Slope, Brooklyn.
A November 2002 Daily Variety news item reported that Bill Murray and John Turturro were initially considered for lead roles in the film as "Bernard Berkman" and "Ivan," respectively. According to an September 8, 2004 Daily Variety article, in late 2002, "based on Murray's verbal commitment, the strength of the script and [producer Wes] Anderson's involvement," producer Peter Newman was able to raise $7.1 million in financing. When the filmmakers could not obtain a written commitment from Murray, however, the financing fell through. After signing Jeff Daniels to play Bernard, and with partial funding in place, the producers were able to obtain a final budget of approximately $1.2 million. A April 10, 2003 Backstage West Dramalogue news item noted the film was then set to begin filming in May 2003. The Baseline Studio Systems website lists Redeemable Features among the production companies credited during pre-production; however, their involvement in the final film has not been confirmed.
Numerous articles noted the following about the production: Director-writer Noah Baumbach based the screenplay in part on the divorce of his own parents, author Jonathan Baumbach and film critic Georgia Brown. Actor Jeff Daniels wore some of Jonathan Baumbach's own clothing for the film, and Noah Baumbach shot on Super 16mm film stock to emulate movies of the 1980s. The film was shot on location in Brooklyn, in Park Slope and at Midwood High School, Baumbach's alma mater. The Squid and the Whale marked the first major film role for Owen Kline, the son of actors Phoebe Cates and Kevin Kline. Nico Baumbach, who plays "Jeb Gelber" in the film and served as the videographer, is Noah Baumbach's younger brother.
In addition to being named one of AFI's ten Movies of the Year for 2005, the film received an Academy Award nomination for Baumbach for Best Original Screenplay, as well as being included in the "top ten" lists of several critics' groups. The picture won the 2005 Sundance Film Festival American Directing Award and the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award, and Baumbach tied with Dan Futterman, who wrote Capote, for the Los Angeles Film Critics Association's Best Screenplay award. The picture was nominated for six Independent Spirit Awards, for Best Female Lead (Laura Linney), Best Male Lead (Jeff Daniels), Best Supporting Male (Jesse Eisenberg), Best Director, Best Screenplay and Best Feature; a Writers Guild of America award for Original Screenplay; and Golden Globe awards for Best Musical or Comedy Picture, Best Motion Picture Actor-Comedy or Musical (Daniels) and Best Motion Picture Actor-Comedy or Musical (Linney).
Miscellaneous Notes
Co-winner of the 2005 award for Best Screenplay by the Los Angeles Film Critics Association (LAFCA).
Voted one of the 10 best films of 2005 by the American Film Institute (AFI).
Winner of the 2005 award for Best Original Screenplay by the National Board of Review (NBR).
Winner of the 2005 award for Best Screenplay by the National Society of Film Critics (NSFC).
Winner of the 2005 award for Best Screenplay by the New York Film Critics Circle (NYFCC).
Winner of the 2005 Satellite Award for Best Supporting Actress - Drama (Laura Linney) by the International Press Academy (IPA).
Winner of two 2005 awards including Best Screenplay and Best Actress (Laura Liney) by the Toronto Film Critics Association (TFCA).
Released in United States 2005
Released in United States Fall October 5, 2005
Released in United States January 2005
Released in United States October 14, 2005
Released in United States on Video March 21, 2006
Shown at New York Film Festival September 22-October 9, 2005
Bill Murray and John Turturro previously attached to star.
Released in United States 2005 (Shown at New York Film Festival September 22-October 9, 2005)
Released in United States January 2005 (Shown at Sundance Film Festival (Dramatic Competition) January 20-30, 2005.)
Released in United States on Video March 21, 2006
Released in United States Fall October 5, 2005
Released in United States October 14, 2005 (Los Angeles)
