‘White Noise’ review: Noah Baumbach’s 1980s family drama builds up steam and lets off a whimper [B] | Venice Film Festival

Edgier and more expressionistic than anything we’ve seen from a director whose commercial sensibility can sometimes border on cautious, White Noise is a markedly ambitious, even wacky movie for one whose main theme is claustrophobia. Adapting Don DeLillo’s 1985 novel of the same name, Noah Baumbach casts Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig as J.A.K (‘Jack’) and Babette (‘Baba’) Gladney, upper-middle class Ohio parents living breezily — or so it appears — in an era that was anything but. Driver challenges himself with the most un-Gucci part there is, a bumbling, overweight “Hitler Studies” professor who lives for simple pleasures and seemingly not much else. Acting by Gerwig, on the other hand, serves as a cruel reminder of how brilliant she is on both sides of the camera, and that she seems to have it all.

Babette, however, doesn’t. A part-time aerobics teacher with a failing memory, Baba seems to live life as a terrifying countdown. A debilitating fear of death is one of the only things the Gladneys seem to have in common. They agree that if they had a little more money, dying could just be “an exchange of documents”. Because of their circumstances, they say, it’s so much more. Jack and Baba bicker about who should die first, who should be cursed to live without the other. That doesn’t mean they’re particularly happy. Jack in his work seems to self-flagellate, basking in the shock and awe of gruesome Hitler footage he has played his students for sixteen years. He might learn a lesson from Wendell (Don Cheadle), an affable ex-New Yorker who teaches a class about Elvis, and is convinced two of the most famous men in history had plenty in common.

Still less happy is Baba, who experiences a particularly anxious twist on the well-tread postwar frustrations of women like her: she cooks heaps, but doesn’t eat much, and basks in her own version of shock and awe when she teaches seniors how to hula-hoop. Becoming a Belle Du Jour never crosses her mind, though something similarly out-of-character ultimately does. That drama we can expect from a couple who’ve each been married three times. What Baumbach and DeLillo are more interested in are the quirky, existential illustrations of that boredom. Humorously urgent German lessons with a certified nut. The significance of a bizarre plume of smoke that threatens to poison the town. The suburban supermarket has a kind of spiritual limbo, sliding doors included.

None of that is Baumbach’s usual fare, even as White Noise has the same flippant comic style as much of his other work. In its more intense moments White Noise is deeper and darker than anything he has done before. There are genuine horror scenes, plenty of nightmares that disrupt the day, and an eerie score by Danny Eflman that’s as far from Randy Newman as a piece of music can possibly be. Lol Crawley’s stellar photography is also a big sideways step from Wes Anderson-lite visuals that have defined Baumbach’s past few films. It all gives the impression Baumbach is keen to dive faithfully into his source material, another step-change for a director who hasn’t adapted since he co-wrote Anderson’s Fantastic Mr Fox script.

Well, Fantastic Mr Fox this isn’t. DeLillo’s story ends with a bang, but Baumbach simply can’t apply his trademark irreverence to scenes that could truly do without it. These are immature, sometimes childish people, it becomes clear, as well as irresponsible parents who seem to misplace their kids at every turn. Squaring that with the emotional severity of outside events is inevitably difficult, a challenge routinely achieved by the Coen Bros or Paul Thomas Anderson, and few others. Unfortunately, White Noise can’t land its frustratingly playful climax, and leans on an original LCD Soundsystem song to perk things up in the end credits. It’s certainly refreshing that Baumbach is reaching for new heights, but his latest is a little too much sound and fury, signifying too little.

This review is from the 2022 Venice Film Festival. White Noise will be released in select theaters on November 25 and on Netflix December 30.

Photo: Wilson Webb/Netflix