Movies: Owen Kline

Frank, the 12-year-old in The Squid and the Whale, gets a double dose of bad luck. The breakup of his parents’ marriage comes just as Frank has hit puberty—hit it like a crash-test dummy slamming into a granite wall. In no time he has become a heavy drinker and a chronic masturbator while somehow remaining a sweet, devoted kid. The great trick is in the “somehow.” Somehow Owen Kline embodied that bundle of complexities, found the pathos and comedy in poor Frank’s turmoil.

Breeding plays a part. Owen, 14, is the son of actors Kevin Kline and Phoebe Cates. Serendipity helps too. Write-director Noah Baumbach had shown his script to friends Kline and Cates. When he was having trouble casting the role of Frank, his wife Jennifer said, “We need someone like Owen, someone who is soulful and funny.” Cates and Kline let their son audition and, when he was chosen, were on the set with him. The “tough” scenes (spilling his seed in school, trying on his first condom) were the easiest, Baumbach says: “It actually was just faking things.” The real challenge came when Owen had to cry. “When the parents announce that they’re breaking up, we did that scene a few times,” says Baumbach, “and Owen really could cry in each one. It was very touching and at the same time so impressive. It’s talent.”

A tribute to young Kline’s talent is that viewers of the film assume that he must be a bit…troubled. With a fearful sympathy, they ask Baumbach, “How is Owen?” His answer: “Owen couldn’t be a better kid. He is so mature, so sane. I love him.”

The teen is not pursuing an acting career, but he’s not exactly idle. He makes movies with his friends, does graphic novels, designs his own clothes and plays drums. “The last time I saw him,” Baumbach says, “he was playing Bob Dylan on the ukulele.” If folks come up and ask Owen Kline about poor Frank, he could sing, “No, no, no, it ain’t me, babe.”