From Hell's Heart

I've never read Herman Melville's Moby Dick. They say it's one of those books that should be taught in a graduate English course. Maybe it has Christian allegories, or some such. What little I know comes from Star Trek 2.

That's right. The movie that gave you William Shatner yelling "Khan!" and has been made fun of in Seinfeld. I had seen Star Trek 2 (and read its novelization) like ten times or more when it came on television. I had it recorded on videotape. I don't even recall whether it was VHS or Betamax. My parents had both. When Sony lost the Betamax war, we got a VHS machine.

In the scene that leads up to Shatner's primal scream, Khan says something like "I shall leave you as you left me, as you left her, marooned for all eternity in the center of dead planet. Buried alive. Buried alive". At which point, Shatner shakes as if he's about to burst, then yells out "Khaaan!", then again, but this time, the camera focuses on the planet, and you now hear Shatner's voice resonating as if his voice were piercing the planet, and going out into space, then focusing back on Khan (a great turn by Ricardo Montalban, reprising his role from the series) who is savoring this moment, a kind of justice meted out.

The "her" in this case was his wife from the episode, Space Seed where Khan is the product of twentieth century genetic engineering, but then fled Earth and stayed in cryogenic suspension until Kirk and the crew wake him. They try to take over the ship, and are eventually dropped off on a planet, where Khan and his crew must survive.

This is a memory I have of growing up in the eighties.

It is, I suppose, relevant to the film, The Squid and the Whale which is also a very personal film for Noah Baumbach. The story of two academics, a father who yearns to be recognized for his literary talent, and his more successful wife, and how their divorve affects their two sons, one who worships his dad, the other his mom.

Few films seem to deal with the topic of divorce and how it affects children. While the plot itself isn't particularly strong, the point, I feel, is to evoke a time period. While Wes Anderson contributed to this film, it never quite feels as out of time as some of Anderson's films. Rushmore's lead character, Max Fischer, just seems a bit too odd, and therefore, it never quite resonates as a real story, which it isn't exactly.

Jeff Daniels does an excellent job playing an academic who looks down on most of the rest of the world, and yet, even in the academic community, he can't gain much recognition. His son seems to worship him, yet is eventually let down by his dad's pecadilloes, even as his dad encourages this in his son. Daniels plays a character that's not the kind of guy that seems to have real heart-to-heart talks that you expect television dads from the 60s to have.

Laura Linney, more or less, plays the role that she generally plays, but it works fine here. She's the mom that was dissatisfied with the marriage. She comes across warmer, even as she's the one who had multiple affairs. Neither parent is exactly a role model.

The kids react in funny ways. The older son sides with his dad, and blames his mom for this situation, even though he remembers a fond memory as a child. One of the better scenes, which plays somewhat against expectations, is when he meets the school psychologist. He mimics his dad's reliance on credentials. Ph.D. s mean a lot to him, and thus mean a lot to his son, even though his son doesn't appear to be living up to what his dad has accomplished (which alas, isn't that much).

The younger son has a more disturbed outcome. He does things to make himself be more adult, but in odd ways. He begins to masturbate, and put the result of his work on books, on lockers. He starts to drink. The kid is like ten years old. This is a delicate topic to deal with. I suppose Baumbach is making a statement on how divorce can affect one's innocence about the world.

Having not been a product of divorce, the film still felt rather personal and real, and while it doesn't head to a definitive conclusion, we have no idea what will happen to this family, it does seem to capture the feelings of alienation and uncertainty that children go through when dealing with divorce, and that weirdness is magnified when parents are academics.

I did enjoy the film, and would give it a B+.