Did anyone else find the male characters misogynistic?

This was because the father in his infinite arrogance raised his son to be an image of himself, something Walt didn't fight until the end of the movie. Remember that Walt only took his fathers input on everything, not even bothering to read the books his father recommended to him.

All the mean and misplaced things he told his mother about her writing, and his girlfriend about Kafka and the freckels, were all part of his fathers way of acting. He isn't in touch with himself and throughout the movie talks as if his father talks through him.

Both parents seemed to have neglected their relationship, the father by being arrogant and self-absorbed, her by being unfaithful, but the mother is the only character who acts and speaks like a normal person, not like a character in a novel. Bernards every opinion, aside from his emotional outbursts, seem carefully thought out to make him seem smarter than everyone else.

To me the mother always seemed like the one the audience is meant to sympathize with, but this might just be my own subjective view when seen in contrast with Bernards actions. I might also draw parallels with men in my family, for better or worse. In the end I always thought the mother was the saner of the two.


-Nailed it.-

I saw it less as misogyny than "miseverything". The father was bitter, frustrated with his life, hated his ex-wife and wanted to both live through his son and punish women for what his ex-wife did to him.
Bernard is a deeply narcissistic character, everything is either "great" or "lesser work", black or white. He didn't even ask how the son felt about his girlfriend, he just wanted to make an absolute statement. Characters like that will always make rationalizations / excuses about their viewpoint but in the end they only serve to make themselves look good.

Frank wasn't that way. He loved his mother and knew his father was a douche. He didn't get along with his brother either. I think men that respect their mothers make good fathers and husbands.

What I wonder is, is Noah Baumbach Walt or Frank? Frank I had some sympathy for, but Walt was growing up to be as big a jerk as his dad.

Walt definitely was a jerk toward the girls that liked him, but he clearly started to realize that after a while (I remember being the same way at his age). Bernard acted impressed by the writing of the Anna Paquin character, so I'm not sure if he was necessarily sexist.

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