Noah Baumbach writes and directs this off-beat comedy drama, based on his own experiences as a young boy growing up in the 1980s and trying to deal with his parents' divorce. Bernard (Jeff Daniels) is the father of an eccentric Brooklyn family who claims to have been a great novelist in his youth, but who has settled down to a teaching job in middle age. When his wife Joan (Laura Linney) discovers a writing talent of her own, her success makes Bernard jealous and splits the family apart, leaving their two young children to form new relationships with their separated parents.