Remember, oh, last year, when THE SQUID AND THE WHALE came out and you were asking yourself, what is that about? Is it some horror movie about a battle to the death between Orca and some many-tentacled denizen of the deep? Is it some heartwarming animal story like MARCH OF THE PENGUINS? Is it the story of a petit bourgois literary-type family living in Park Slope in 1986 as the marriage falls apart and the kids take it hard? Oh, I bet you were so not asking yourself that last question. And yet, if you had, ...
...you'd have hit the nail on the improbable head. For that is what this is, and frankly, I was kind of hoping for the Giant Squid of plot contrivance to come along and swallow up the entire family. Is there anything more tedious than the romantic and emotional struggles of pretentious teenaged boys and their gray-bearded, past-their-literary-prime fathers (though I like Jeff Daniels)? Stumped? The answer is no.Then there was Mom, the usually lovable Laura Linney, prancing around Brooklyn in her corduroy skirts (I think they were popular in 1986), getting her novel published while her husband's star dims, dating the younger brother's tennis teacher (a seriously not-aged-well William Baldwin). Everyone in this family needed their mouth washed out with soap and a good kick in the a-s-s. Maybe they just needed to move out of Brooklyn. Whatever, this movie proved the point: if a 50-ish guy with a seedy tweed jacket, a beard, and an old Volvo heads your way, run for Manhattan.