A particular look at one divorce within one family, but never has a film about divorce so clearly shown the terrible things that happen to a family when a husband and a wife separate. This dissection of a family ripped apart may not have high production values or glossy cinematography, but it is as well written and acted as movies get. The subject may sound like a downer, yet filmmaker Noah Baumbach doesn’t wallow in the depression. His approach is more of morbid fascination, like a crime scene in a suspense thriller. The family doesn’t live in misery. The situation wakes them up, and stirs up a lot of repressed anger and confusion. The film is very exciting and the observations are for the most part, painfully accurate.
The movie uses the song “Hey You” by Pink Floyd as a running commentary. There’s debate about the fact that the grown ups (and some kids) in the movie do not recognize the classic song. The film takes place right as the albumn first came out, so I’m unsure how quickly it became known by that generation. As for the adults, I think the fact that they don’t recognize the tune speaks about the disconnect between generations. Either way, the song is a perfect compliment to the actions and as it goes from a quiet acoustic version to the Pink Floyd original, the film’s emotional power swells with it.
Jeff Daniels has always been one of our most undervalued actors. Still known mostly for matching Jim Carrey’s lunacy in Dumb & Dumber, Daniels specializes in playing emotionally true, ordinary guys. (My favorite moment is the final look he gives in SPEED. It’s the kind of moment you never get in an action film and his face speaks volumes.) Here, he plays a pompous writer still living in the brief glory that has long since passed. The film stays in a fairly narrow time frame, but through Daniels you get the entire history of a man who was once great, and wants to be seen that way again even at the expense of his own children.
He’s matched perfectly in a very raw performance by Laura Linney. On the surface, Linney’s character seems like the demon who drove the family apart through adultry and booze. Without clearly saying so – did I mention how good the script is – Linney gets across a woman doing anything to break free of her husband’s emotional grasp. And I may be wrong, but it looked like Linney did the role with no makeup. Every blemish is out there.
The true stars of the film are the two kids, Jessie Eisenberg and Owen Klien. The kids are the ones ripped apart by the separation, forced to take sides and often pitted by one parent against another. Their rebellion manifests as immoral and downright jerky behavior that covers a painful cry for help. In fact, nobody in this film comes off as all that likable, except they’re all so believable and emotionally true that I was disappointed when the credits came up after a scant 80 minutes. I wanted to spend more time with these people.
On the technical side, I am most impressed with the final scene. Though there’s no direct connection, the emotions all rest on the title of the film and creating a knockout in the final images. It’s something that was also done in The Florida Project, and there it left me cold. Here, I knew in my heart exactly what Baumbach was going for and it worked perfectly.
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