Delayed Reaction: The Squid and the Whale

The Pitch: A dark comedy about a nasty divorce.

Noah Baumbach sure knows how to make endearing unlikable characters. I saw both Frances Ha and Greenberg over the last couple years and and am excited to get to Mistress America soon. The Squid and the Whale is the movie of his I've probably heard about the most. I'm pretty sure Marc Maron raved about it a few times on WTF and didn't Jeff Daniels mention it during his Emmy acceptance speech for The Newsroom?

I had a lot of trouble connecting with this movie. It's deeply personal. That's obvious. Jeff Daniels in particular is insufferable yet engaging. He's loathsome and funny, often in the same breath. I always love Laura Linney. I didn't know that there was a Jesse Eisenberg in 2005, so that was interesting to find out. I can see why the screenplay is highly regarded. Writing is Baumbach's greatest strength.
Despite all that, I struggle to say that I liked the movie. Immediately, I look to the run time. It's only 81 minutes long and felt much longer. That's a bad sign as a gut reaction. Most of issues are with Owen Kline as the younger brother. It felt like they were trying too hard to show how fucked up he was getting. I could at least understand what was going on in the other characters' heads. Kline, I had no idea. Based on the previous movies of Baumbach's that I've like more, maybe I just need Greta Gerwig to be there. Replace Anna Paquin with her and maybe I'd be raving about it.

Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend