Re: White Noise reviews
Posted: Sun Jan 15, 2023 11:07 pm
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.
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.