What does this mean?This movie was most likely my least favorite movie of all the ones we watched this semester. This can most likely come from how close it hit to home, or because I could not see any important meaning to the film. I felt that the movie was nothing other than a story of a family who has to go through a divorce. However, like Walt I was the oldest child in a family that has struggles. My family was close to separating at one point but luckily we powered through it and things have only improved . However I said that I could relate to Walt because when children have to go through something so horrible as a divorce they are left scared. Normally a child will pick a side just in order to have someone to point the finger at, someone to blame. In this movie Walt pointed the finger at his mother. For me I still pointed the finger at one person but I never put all the blame on them, however I realized that even though one or both of them had messed up they were still my parents and no matter what, each of them loved me. Unlike me Walt pushed away his mother, which ends up causing him even more pain. The Squid and the Whale exhibit had only resembled one thing, a memory. When Walt is talking to the school "shrink" he is asked to remember one of his happiest moments he can remember which happened to be memories of his mother who until that moment he had pushed away. At the end of the movie we get to see Walt return to the Squid and the Whale exhibit in real life, something that he had been afraid of and yet we see he is comforted by this when he goes back. Him returning to this exhibit is like how he returned to his mother earlier realizing that even if it is her fault they had to go through the divorce he realizes that she is still his mother who really does care about him.
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One of the other main things that was pretty evident throughout the entire movie was family dynamics. At the start of the movie Walt had appeared to support his father about almost anything while Frank was more supportive of their mother. These dynamics change right near the end when Walt actually stands up to his father and tells him to leave Frank at their mothers and that he will go instead. This change shows how Walt isn't the kid who just follows his father's lead and takes his word for everything but shows how intellectual he has become challenging his father who he previously wouldn't.
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