White Noise (2022)

 Don DeLillo's 1985 novel 'White Noise' is one of those books that was said to be unfilmable. Multiple previous attempts, including one that was to be helmed by Barry Sonnenfield, all fell through. Finally Noah Baumbach was able to rangel the thing into some coherence, adapting and directing the movie version. The film shows evidence of some adaptive difficulty, with a busy first half and a more reflective second. 

While the central narrative is not particularly complicated, the film touches on so many different themes that it can seem kind of crowded. Academic pretension, consumerism, fear of death, environmental disaster, changing family dynamics, depression, prescription drug abuse, existential dread, and plain old denial. It's a stew of American psychosis in the 1980's.

It's the start of the academic year in 1984 and Jack Gladney (the always great Adam Driver) is a celebrated professor of "Hitler Studies" at the College-on-the-Hill in suburban Ohio. He is on his fourth marriage, this one to Babbette (Greta Gerwig) a homemaker and part time aerobics instructer also on her forth marriage. Their blended family includes a boy and a girl from two of Jack's marriages, a girl from one of Babbette's, and a boy they had together. Their lives seem mostly good until the "Airborn Toxic Event".

"Airborn Toxic Event" is the name given to the result of a collision between a tanker truck carrying toxic chemicals and a train doing the same. The Gladney's do their best to ignore the ominous black cloud until an evacuation is finally ordered. What follows plays kind of like an unusually dark 'National Lampoons Vaction' movie. After 9 days things are said to be under control and residents allowed to return to their homes, but something has changed for the Gladney's, their sense of security and control over their lives has been shattered, strains in the marraige manifest. Thus begins the films more contemplative second half.

Driver anchors the film with a typically solid performance, Grewig comes off a little over strong at first but settles into the part. The kids are all good, though one never speaks, and for me the standouts among the supporting players are Don Cheadle and Jodie Turner-Smith as two of Driver's work colleagues. The aesthetics of the film are a few shades down from Wes Anderson.

A writerly film it loves its words. Generally stylized, there are some standout dialouge scenes and a sequence that can best be described as "dueling monologues". While watching the film it registered as a mixture of good and bad, though always interesting. On reflection how can a film so much about the idea of pretension not ocassionly wander into pretension its self? On further reflection this film is still at times genuinely pretensious. But the ending worked for me, things came together and I was generally satisfied. I also rather enjoyed the a-typical end credits.

'White Noise' takes risks and is the better for it. Not for all tastes, it's a film of some literary heft and a walleyed perspective on foibeles, from the personal to the societial. ***1/2