FAMILY'S EMOTIONAL WRECKAGE LITTERS THE SCREEN.

Byline: Glenn Whipp Film Critic

JUDGING FROM his finely observed piece of character assassination, ``The Squid and the Whale,'' writer-director Noah Baumbach is still working out some pretty serious father issues. And as smart and strongly acted as the movie is, you're still left with the feeling that it's ultimately a rather thin slice of personal history that would have been better left as a short story or a lifetime of therapy sessions.

Baumbach, the son of novelist and critic Jonathan Baumbach and onetime Village Voice film critic Georgia Brown, has admitted that ``The Squid and the Whale'' (the title refers to a diorama at New York City's Museum of Natural History) is ``semi-autobiographical,'' and, indeed, the film has the ring of authenticity that comes from having lived through a childhood nightmare.

Whether you're glad Baumbach decided to tell about it may well depend on whether you also had a set of self-absorbed parents who demanded much but gave little.

The movie's opening scene nicely establishes the dynamic to follow. Bernard (Jeff Daniels), wife Joan (Laura Linney) and their two sons, 16-year-old Walt (Jesse Eisenberg) and 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline) are playing doubles tennis, with Bernard and Walt pitted against Joan and Frank. Bernard tells Walt to hit to his mother's weak backhand. It's not about fun. It's not even about tennis. It's about latent hostility.

The Brooklyn-based Bernard and Joan aren't long for this world as a couple. The power balance in their relationship has shifted. Joan may have a weak backhand, but her writing career is on the upswing. Bernard, a novelist whose career peaked long ago, gives her notes as he would the students at his university creative writing class. But Joan stopped listening (in every respect) long ago.

The boys take their parents' separation hard. Walt blames his mother, while the younger and more fragile (in some respects, at least) Frank gravitates toward her. Both are seriously messed up. Frank takes to drinking and public masturbation. Walt continues to idolize his father, paying the price - just as his old man does - for his stunted emotional growth.

None of these people are particularly likable - the mother character is too thinly drawn to even be understood - and, while that makes the movie believable, it doesn't make it enjoyable or particularly rewarding. There is some fun from the inspired casting of William Baldwin as a tennis pro who takes up with Joan and can't utter a sentence without saying ``my brother,'' and some perversity in the choice of having Anna Paquin play a nubile student who is sexually curious about Bernard. (Paquin played Daniels' daughter in Carroll Ballard's lovely family film, ``Fly Away Home.'')

And Daniels, buried beneath a bushy beard (all the better to resemble Baumbach's dear old dad, my dear) is spot-on as a despicable man doing everything he can to hold onto his delusions of importance, not to mention No. 1 son (and fan) Walt. I don't know if Baumbach has ever made peace with his father. If he hasn't, this movie won't help, though the elder Baumbach might be flattered to see the devastation he has wrought.

Glenn Whipp, [phone]

glenn.whipp(at)dailynews.com

THE SQUID AND THE WHALE - Two and one half stars

(R: strong sexual content, graphic dialogue, language)

Starring: Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, Owen Kline.

Director: Noah Baumbach.

Running time: 1 hr. 28 min.

Playing: Pacific's Galleria Stadium 16 in Sherman Oaks; Laemmle's Playhouse 7 in Pasadena; Laemmle's Monica in Santa Monica; Laemmle's Sunset 5 in West Hollywood.

In a nutshell: Finely observed look at a monstrous father and a family coming apart at the seams is rich in detail but not particularly rewarding beyond being an example of character assassination.

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When his parents' marriage disintegrates, 12-year-old Frank (Owen Kline) gravitates toward his mother (Laura Linney) in ``The Squid and the Whale.''