“Where’d You Go, Bernadette”– Movie Review

This week at The New York Times Screen Times series, I attended an advance screening of the new comedy-drama, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” starring Cate Blanchett and directed by Richard Linklater.

Synopsis

When a woman decides to go on a journey of self-discovery, will this drive her away from her family or only serve to make them closer?

 

Story

Bernadette (Blanchett) and her husband Elgie (Billy Crudup) have promised their daughter Bee (Emma Nelson) a family vacation in Antarctica before she heads off to boarding school.  But just as they start making plans, things begin to unravel for Bernadette. Miserable in an immense, dilapidated house in Seattle, she agreed to move there when Elgie got a job with Microsoft. She is no longer able to hide her disdain for the house, her obnoxious neighbors or the city itself.  Feeling trapped in an unyielding situation, Bernadette starts heavily self-medicating.

Noticing his wife’s strange behavior, Elgie tries to intercede, but Bernadette is having no part of this.  As a result, Elgie secretly hires Dr. Kurtz (Judy Greer), a therapist, whom he sees without Bernadette’s knowledge.  In his session with Dr. Kurtz, Elgie reveals a great deal about his wife, citing numerous setbacks, both personal and professional.  It turns out that Bernadette gave up a successful career as an architect in order to take care of the family and provide emotional support to her husband and daughter.  Dr. Kurtz recommends an intervention where they confront Bernadette with her unusual conduct and attempt to make the next steps to get her the help that she so desperately needs.

During the intervention, Bernadette becomes enraged when she discovers that Dr. Kurtz and Elgie both want her institutionalized.  Unwilling to relent to their wishes, Bernadette escapes. Following an extensive search, Elgie and Bee learn that Bernadette has headed to Antarctica by herself.  Determined to find her, they both head off to the continent themselves, knowing full well that Bernadette may be in something of an unstable state. Once they believe they have tracked her down, Elgie and Bee decide to confront Bernadette with the intention of convincing her to return home.  But when Bernadette is startled by her family’s presence, will their intentions drive them further apart or will they support Bernadette’s endeavor to resurrect her career?      

Review

Even if you haven’t read the novel on which the movie is based, it’s not hard to appreciate the level of difficulty adapting such a sprawling story from book to screen.  What might work on the printed page (e.g., several pages of a description of something or a rant about one thing or another) usually never translates well in a film. This is the case with “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” as it seems all over the place much of the time.  Also, while it tries to bill itself as a comedy (or, at least, a comedy-drama), it takes so many dark and serious turns that it’s quite a stretch to consider it a comedy. The film is more quirky than funny.

The characters prove a bit problematic as well.  While Bernadette is supposed to be the protagonist here, her destructive behavior makes it something of a challenge to root for her.  It is not until we are about three-quarters of an hour into the movie that the audience gets more background about Bernadette which has caused her current state of emotional distress.  Although it’s never a good idea to dump too much exposition on the viewers all at once, the problem with layering out the character’s backstory, at least in this instance, is that by the time we can appreciate her situation, the behavior we have already observed by her thus far makes it difficult to see Bernadette as a sympathetic character. 

Following the screening, there was an interview with director Richard Linklater.  Linklater said that he spent a year editing the movie; the result was a two and three-quarter hour running time.  Realizing this was too long, he went back to the editing room and cut some more. He said that his approach to editing was essentially like sculpting the film down to find its story; Linklater feels it is character-driven and the spine of the story is the relationship between the mother and the daughter.  As a result, he wound up cutting out anything that did not serve that story well. Examples of what he removed were the TED talk (it was originally much longer) and the documentary about Bernadette (more of that was actually in the first cut of the motion picture).