10 'Comedies' That Were Secretly Really Depressing

4. The Squid And The Whale

A second entry for Noah Baumbach, someone who is truly becoming the 21st century's king of depression-inducing comedy. The Squid And The Whale is another NB movie of the heavily autobiographical variety, and that at least offers some answers as to why Baumbach grew up with such a glum view of mankind. The Squid And The Whale tells of a family, headed by Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney's parents and rounded off by Jesse Eisenberg and Owen Kline's kids, going through a break-up, as Mum and Dad decide to get a divorce. It's not that the basics for The Squid And The Whale don't suggest a quirky, humorous indie, though: Daniels' Bernard is a pretentious ass who has no idea how to look after himself minus a wife, while Eisenberg's Walt and Kline's Frank are given to Pink Floyd plagiarisation and a masturbation problem, respectively. In execution, however, the film feels like every unhappy teenage memory you've got rolled into one movie. It's almost like Baumbach wrote a potentially funny scenario out on the page, only to get onto the set determined to make his story as upsetting as possible.