Yonatan.T

Noah Baumbach as the director and screenwriter depicts the later life of a failed artist and his highly dysfunctional family. The movie introduces us to this family abruptly through the character Danny Meyerowitz and his daughter Eliza. Danny has come to New York with his daughter to stay with his father Harold Meyerowitz and his wife Maureen as he is going through a divorce. The family treats this news of a separation with his 18-year partner lightly and is brushed over in conversation as if it was something casual. This isn’t the first hint we get into how dysfunctional the family is, as Danny and his daughter drive into town looking for a place to park, we see how Danny deals with his frustration of not find a parking space. He shouts, swears and drives recklessly. His daughter seems to be used to this attitude as we see no shock in her expression, except a little reminder to stop shouting. As the film continues, we are introduced to Harrold (The Dad) who has failed as sculpture and the most dysfunctional of all of them. We learn that Harrold is on his fourth wife and has had three children throughout his marriages. Then we come to understand that his two children from his 2nd marriage were neglected and can be seen to suffer from this in their highly dysfunctional behaviour. Noah uses the plot device of The Dad's illness to bring these children together and at this moment the film gets more intense as we see what the characters have been through as they interact with each other. Noah Baumbach depicts Manhattan’s artsy perfectly as he saw in his own life, his father and mother being well-known film critics in the Big Apple.

The film is presented in distinctive segments, each of them abruptly cutting onto the screen as if introducing a big chapter. I found this to be off-putting as it took me too much out of the story and didn’t find it adding any substance to the film. On the other hand, the dialogue in this film was impressive and one that mimics real-life talking. Characters are talking over each other, interrupting one another and speaking before one finished. It feels like watching a real conversation in a bar or a round table talk. This immersed me into the film and was impressed by the power the elegant dialogue presented. The colour-grading in this film was well thought out, it gives the cinematic look unusually associate with the Big apple therefore further immersion into the pictures. Lastly, without the amazing sound design, this film would have not worked as well. As we see with the adding of the squeak in the old piano when Danny and his daughter play it, or the traffic of New York in the background of most scenes. It gives the feel of being sat beside these characters and plays hugely to the success of the film.