The Squid and the Whale

The Squid and the Whale (2005) is Noah Baumbach's sharp divorce comedy-drama you can watch online on iFILM. Brooklyn, 1986: a family of writers and readers comes apart, and two sons get caught in the wreckage.

Bernard Berkman (Jeff Daniels) was once a respected novelist; now he teaches and resents everyone who outsells him. When his wife Joan (Laura Linney) starts publishing to real acclaim, the marriage collapses into joint custody negotiated like a chessboard. Their older boy Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) parrots his father's snobbery and passes off a Pink Floyd song as his own. Younger Frank acts out in messier, sadder ways. Everyone picks a parent. Nobody comes out clean.

Baumbach drew the script straight from his own childhood, and it landed an Oscar nomination for Best Original Screenplay. William Baldwin plays the unflappable tennis coach, while a young Anna Paquin turns a student into the fault line between father and son. It is prickly, uncomfortable and genuinely funny about the way clever people wound each other with words. Stream The Squid and the Whale (2005) online on iFILM.