The Squid and the Whale

This is the closest i've seen to my dad on screen, and it is excruciating. The whole thing is. I spent some of it in other rooms, willing myself to see it through. It is because of its unflinching honesty that its an ordeal to watch, and at the same time utterly compelling. It feels very true to life. The children are victims of their parents deeply flawed personalities. They sexualise any conversation they can, with devastating results to the children's behaviour. There are subtle behavioral observations here, but at the same time there are some heavy handed interactions, such as the father having no redeeming qualities whatsoever, and with the film tilted on the mother's side on an autobiographical film, I can't help but feel he could have been a little more rounded, as he slowly becomes an hilarious pantomime villian. Aside from that, as a depiction of a family imploding, this film is near perfect. 

I liked the way the director used handheld shots to get in and around scenes in a documentary style fashion. The choice moment I believe is the scene where the father, in his typically entitled, proud manner, almost demands to be with his wife again, to which she only laughs at his increasing rage. As the camera darts around, the children are stationary witnesses of the deconstruction of their parents.

The film's short, 77 minutes, which gives me hope that I can make a feature at that length some day. Christopher Nolan did it with Following, which is near enough the same duration, so by this logic I can get away with an hour 20.