The Squid and the Whale

Brooklyn 1986. Berkman family playing tennis doubles. Father Bernard and son Walt vs. mother Joan and son Frank. Competitive but still together. Family unit intact but cracks showing beneath surface.

Bernard tells Walt to take credit for achievements. Theme of authenticity vs. pretension, whose perspective matters, and cost of intellectual arrogance on family and self.

Parents announce divorce. Bernard once-successful novelist now teaching. Joan finding success as writer. Boys must split time between houses. Walt idolizes father, emulates his pretensions. Frank acts out.

Custody arrangement begins. Walt stays mostly with Bernard in Park Slope. Frank mostly with Joan in rental. Family physically divided. Walt learns mother having affair. Betrayal felt deeply.

Walt takes father side completely against mother. Starts dating Sophie. Should he be honest about feelings or perform intellectualism like father? Frank drinking, acting sexual. Both processing divorce differently.

Walt performs Hey You by Pink Floyd at talent show, claiming he wrote it. Lies to impress. Bernard dates Lili, his student. New relationships forming. Family fractured into separate lives.

Walt and Sophie relationship. She genuinely cares but he is emotionally stunted, performing intellectualism rather than connecting. Mirror of parents failed marriage. Will he repeat patterns or break them?

Both boys navigate split households. Bernard bitter about Joan success. Walt parrots father opinions. Frank gets drunk, masturbates inappropriately. Ivan, mother boyfriend, tries connecting with boys. Dysfunction explored.

Bernard relationship with Lili falters due to his self-absorption. Walt caught plagiarizing Pink Floyd song. False victory of pretension exposed. Sophie breaks up with Walt. Facades cracking.

Bernard must move to cheaper place. Walt expelled from school for plagiarism. Frank reveals mother affair to Walt. Bernard drinks heavily, criticizes Joan constantly. Family situation deteriorating on all fronts.

Walt has breakdown at school. Frank tells therapist about mother affair and inappropriate behavior. Bernard financial and emotional collapse. Walt realizes father is not who he pretended to be. Illusions shattered.

Walt hospitalized after panic attack. Confronts both parents. Realizes father is petty, jealous, failed writer. Mother affair revealed to Bernard. All family secrets exposed. Everyone flawed. No heroes.

Walt begins seeing own patterns. Apologizes to Sophie. Starts accepting both parents as imperfect people. Frank opens up in therapy. Family members beginning to see truth rather than performed versions of themselves.

Walt visits Natural History Museum. Stands before Giant Squid and Whale exhibit that terrified him as child. Can now face it. Metaphor for confronting family trauma. Growing beyond parents narratives.

Frances piece performed successfully. Gets own apartment. Sophie visits new place, friendship endures in new form. Frances finds work as choreographer. Not what she planned but authentic. Growth through loss.

Walt stares at exhibit. No longer running. Family still broken but Walt beginning to form own identity beyond father intellectual pretension and mother success. Acceptance of complexity. Growing up painful but necessary.