"White Noise" -- Movie Review

 

On the opening night of The 60^th New York Film Festival, I attended the North American Premiere of the new comedy-drama by Noah Baumbach, “White Noise”. 

Synopsis

When a family grapples with various personal and societal crises, can they ultimately find happiness?

Story

In 1980’s Ohio, Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) and his wife Babbette (Greta Gerwig) work together to raise their four children – a blended family largely consisting of previous marriages.  He works as a college professor and she is a physical therapist at a facility for the elderly.  On the surface, things appear to be fairly normal and pleasant, yet there seems to be a foreboding sense of an ever-present and impending danger right around the corner.  To some degree, the urge is to ignore it and pretend everything is just fine, not wanting to overreact to every situation.  Unfortunately, that soon becomes impossible. 

After a truck carrying a gas tank crashes with a train, a huge plume of toxic smoke arises, blanketing the entire area.  While The Gladney clan monitors the situation, it becomes something of a struggle to remain calm as news reports update the situation.  Soon, residents are instructed to evacuate; The Gladneys pile into their station wagon and attempt to leave town, but they run into a significant traffic jam and remain stuck.  As a result, everyone is forced to take refuge in a small setup on the outskirts of town, hoping that they haven’t been exposed to the toxic chemicals.  Nine days later, people are instructed to return home. 

Once things have appeared to return to normal, Jack becomes aware of Babbette’s reliance on some type of experimental medication that she’s been using in an attempt to alleviate her anxiety over death.  Jack investigates this thoroughly and discovers this is all a hoax – it was the idea of a scammer trying to make money off of desperate people who are willing to do just about anything to be able to overcome their fears.  Eventually, Jack learns that the perpetrator has coerced Babbette into an intimate relationship in order to replenish her supply of pills.  Will Jack ultimately resort to desperate measures to resolve this?

Review

Over the years since the Don DeLillo novel was originally published, it was generally believed that it would be impossible to turn into a movie.  Baumbach’s ambitious attempt to do so results in something of a mixed bag.  While there are certainly some amusingly absurd moments, it might be a bit of a stretch to describe them as comedic; the drama portions of “White Noise” are closer to what might be better thought of as horror.  The motion picture seems to be saying that life is a miserable fright-fest so you better just get used to that and ride out the storm.  If you are considering watching it, be prepared to expect an episodic, non-linear story. 

Much of “White Noise” feels like something of a fever dream – which apparently is the intent here, particularly with respect to the closing musical scene in the supermarket; the idea presumably being to convey the overall sense of anxiety in modern-day society.  Thematically, it attempts to deal with worries over our own mortality, environmentalism and interpersonal relationships.  The degree to which film succeeds waxes and wanes at various points; some of it is quite over the top and far too disturbing to find funny.  Again, this may be purposeful on the part of the filmmaker, but the motion picture is definitely not for everyone.   

Following the screening, there was an interview with writer-director Noah Baumbach and his cast.  The book came out in the 1980’s and Baumbach read it when he was 17; it stuck with him over the years because he loved the author’s voice.  This originally started out as an exercise during the lockdown period of the Covid pandemic; following his film “Marriage Story”, Baumbach was feeling a bit frustrated because he didn’t know what he wanted to work on next.  In the midst of the pandemic, he began reflecting on what was going on in the country at that moment.  This is his first adaptation; Baumbach said that his intent was to say how he felt about modern life (although the story is set in the mid-1980’s).  He said that he didn’t want to set the story in modern times because he wanted to remain true to the book and also that’s when his childhood was.