White Noise reviews

[Mister Tee]

I'm someone who HAS read the book, though enough years ago that, by the time I got to the movie, my memory was essentially "toxic event/road caravan".

I watched the movie over the holidays, and have been meaning to write about it since, but my lingering ague has left me too lethargic to expound much. I'll just chime in with basic agreement: it's far and away Baumbach's most visually strong film. When I discussed Marriage Story, I lamented that he really didn't have a directorial eye, but this film makes me at least consider the possibility he's learning on the job. There's a lot of life in his story-telling, both in his use of actors and in his framing. There were scenes I didn't quite buy (like the car crossing the lake), but many more that burst with life, none more than the Cheadle/Driver Hitler poetry slam.

May I suggest that one reason the last segment of the film worked less well than the rest was the magnitude of the stakes? We had been dealing with existential issues for the better part of two hours, and, when Gerwig began her (exceedingly well-executed) monologue, it seemed like we were still in that realm -- confronting the pharmacological epidemic in the academic class. But, as the monologue nears its end, it narrows down to husband's-jealousy-over-adultery -- a shockingly banal climax to a story that's been founded on far higher ground. There may also be less satisfying dramaturgy to this final sequence, as well, but I think it's the puniness of what's at hand that really reduces the final down-the-stretch action, to the point it can't be fully rescued by the delightful credits sequence.

The movie certainly isn't going far with Oscar voters, though the song is an outside possibility; if the rules indeed say we need a previously-nominated guy in the best actor race, Adam Driver would be by leagues preferable to the robot Cruise; and I could imagine the writers' branch that once singled out Inherent Vice slipping this script into the woeful adapted slate.

Bottom line: I liked the movie for taking the big swing. Like other such efforts this season, it fell short, but in a way I respected and mostly enjoyed.

[Sabin]

Wondering if I need to see this again.

[Big Magilla]

I agree. The first two-thirds were great. In addition to the Driver/Cheadle dueling lectures, I very much enjoyed the family dynamics. Casting real-life brother and sister Sam and May Nivola (the children of Allesandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer, grandchildren of John Mortimer) as Driver's children from his first marriage added to the realistic interplay.

The third act went on too long, relieved only by the joyful silliness of the supermarket romping over the closing credits.

It may not be great, but it's the best new film on the various streaming services. That may not be saying much, but it's certainly better than Glass Onion, The Menu, and Matilda the Musical, all of which I found insufferable.

[Okri]

For the first two thirds, I was firmly pro this. I haven't read this work, but Baumbach found some terrific cinematic ways to convey DeLillo and I think the dueling lectures might be the best thing Baumbach's directed. But the last third is a bit of a miss. Yeah, the credits are awesome, but I was a little resentful of having to sit through them after being mostly bored (the nun's amusing, I'll give you that). I really liked the ensemble.

[Sabin]

I haven't read the book but my sense of Baumbach's adaptation is that he either should have created a clearer point of identification with Adam Driver's professor (perhaps by de-emphasizing some of DeLillo's absurdity with his voice to create a more accessible personal journey) or just going full Altman and creating a portrait of a world. It ends up belonging to a sub-genre of films I think we can call "apocalyptic auteur curios" (Southland Tales, for example). None of them really "work" as a whole, but one's mileage may vary depending on what you're going in with. I probably enjoyed White Noise a bit more than most of them ironically because it's less accessible, more scattershot, more meaningless. Had I gone in having read DeLillo's book, I might be more bullish on it. Or maybe if the third act worked more. As it is, I mainly enjoyed it as an interesting film that I admired in parts and as a leap forward in Noah Baumbach's directing prowess. As more time has gone on, I've become more admiring of Baumbach as a visual filmmaker but nothing could have prepared me for his visual handling of this material. Despite the film being a nonstop assault of irreverent logorrhea, I found it to be mostly engaging as inspired staging and camerawork in service of a world turned upside down. The other smart choice he makes is to have all of DeLillo's dialogue overlap to create an aural atmosphere of irreverent nonsense. (Y'know, if that's your thing). It would've been intolerable otherwise.

Where I'm mixed is it didn't really culminate to anything significant and I think it could have. Even on a part-to-part basis, I was a little confused. The Elvis vs. Hitler classroom duel which launches us into the second act might be the best piece of visual storytelling he's ever done. The problem that I had with it is... does he miss the point of this section? It would seem that the point of this sequence is the absurdity of academia. It ends up feeling like a wackadoo triumph and less an exploration of Dom DeLillo's ideas. Again: I think.

Again, I quite enjoyed it in part, but less as part of a whole. Also, those credits are awesome.

[Mister Tee]

Apparently, a big swing (adapting a novel long thought unfilmable) that doesn't pay off. May well be worth seeing (I'm in), but highly unlikely to be an audience-grabber or awards magnet.

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