The Squid and the Whale

On Saturday, Brendan and I had an early night out in Indian Summer, the Indian in Stillorgan. I had booked it for the boys' night out, and since they couldn't make it, I thought we might as well go! We had a lovely meal there. We went in around 6:30, and were home before 8! It was very quiet - only another table of 2, and a party of 4 had just arrived as we were leaving. I would have thought that at this time of the year, it would be busier, but I guess Indian is not to everybody's taste, and therefore is an unlikely choice for Christmas parties. They don't know what they're missing. I had a lovely dish of fish and prawns, after a shared starter that included prawns, lamb, chicken, chickpeas, pakoras and a spicy salad.

We then rented a DVD, something we don't do very often. There wasn't much there - the choices were Syriana, In Her Shoes, and The Squid and the Whale. I had seen In Her Shoes before, and I felt that Syriana might be too heavy, so we opted for The Squid and the Whale. I had read something about it a while back. It's the story of a family in Brooklyn going through a divorce, and it tells us how it affects the 2 sons (one is 16, the other 12). It's not a Hollywood movie, so there is no big drama - just a simple story nicely told, taking us through the messy stages of separation and how the divorce is affecting the children (and the cat!).

Jeff Daniels is very good as the pedantic writer and college professor, who lives in his own world and doesn't seem to understand why his wife cheated on him (I wonder why she stayed with him for as long as she did!), and how his actions upset his two sons.

And I like Laura Linney too. I remember her in The Life of David Gale, which I really thought was an excellent movie. The other actors in it are Kevin Spacey and Kate Winslet. I don't think it did very well in the box office, but I thought it was a very powerful movie, dealing in an interesting way with the subject of the death penalty.

PS: You will find the Squid and the Whale in the Museum of National History in New York