A small, smart, gem of a film about a young family in divorce mode. Jeff Daniels stars as a roaming mid-life-crisis professor (we’ve seen this role in “Terms of Endearment”) to his wife Laura Linney, a laid back hippy/intellect. The movie practically opens to deliver the moment a child learns that his perfect life is over, parents get divorced, and they move to a new house. Set in Park Slope, Brooklyn, circa 1986, we focus on Frank (Owen Kline) a 12 year old trying to discover his own sexuality, as his parents learn theirs, and a 17 year old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) trying desperately to sustain a normal relationship with a girl, while his parents fall apart. Writer-director Noah Baumbach’s semi-autobiographic tale of two brothers delivered with strong albeit, quirky performances come from Baumbach’s co-writing effort with Wes Anderson in “The Life Aquatic” with Bill Murray. The dinner table discussion is not ‘what did you do today?’ but more like a debate out of honors English class at Harvard. The amusement in the story comes from watching each try to cope from within their tight-wound teeth-gritting self-righteous ways, even when dad is dating a student (Anna Paquin) and mom is dating her tennis instructor (a well invented character for William Baldwin). The movie’s charm and success completely lies in the screenwriter’s craft, able to make his mark with the emotions and depth of divorce, minus the Hollywood happy ending. Three crowns.
