22 Family Movies Not To Watch With Your Family On Thanksgiving
By Tina Wargo
Screengrab courtesy of Samuel Goldwyn Films.
The Squid and the Whale
In this Noah Baumbach comedy/drama, a slowly crumbling family of pretentious white intellectuals proves that trouble can befall even the most privileged of us all! Laura Linney and Jeff Daniels play parents to Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline, brothers who are quickly forced to align their loyalties with one parent or the other. As the movie progresses, the boys lash out in their own peculiar and sometimes disturbing ways, and they come to see their parents as damaged, real people, rather than the perfect heroes we all grow up assuming they are. It’s a quiet movie, and the small moments make it what it is: a human story about growing up, understanding yourself in the context of your family and the world around you, and, eventually, having to face the scary things head on if you want to be able to move on.
Especially avoid if: You’re a child of divorce. Watching this movie as a grown-up and recognizing, on a chemical level, the beginnings of destructive behavior in these children will not only make you sad for your past self, but has the potential to make your current self assess every moment you’ve ever felt broken.