20 Essential Coming Of Age Movies That Changed Your Life

3. The Squid And The Whale

One of the most difficult situations for any child to face is the separation of their parents. It is a traumatic event which throws the lives of all involved into turmoil, placing them in the unenviable position of having to radically adjust their lives and make a choice between which parent they want to live with. Noah Baumbach's excellent film The Squid and the Whale takes this uncomfortable subject matter and injects it with wit and style, elevating it far above the conventional kitchen sink domestic drama it could have become. He's helped considerably by a host of fine performances - Jeff Daniels and Laura Linney as Berhard and Joan Berkman are joined by Jesse Eisenberg as their son, Walt, all of whom invest a degree of nuanced emotions into their roles which stand as career highs. They're helped, of course, by Baumbach's excellent semi-autobiographical script - witty and searching, it glides effortlessly between the mundane and the moving.