“White Noise” (2022) is Noah Baumbach’s latest movie and his second adaptation of a book for the screen. Set in the eighties, the film follows Professor Jack Gladney (Adam Driver, who is styled to have Steve Coogan’s head and a prosthetic dadbod), a rockstar like figure at the College-on-the-Hill, the father of a blended family and husband to his fourth wife, Babette (Greta Gerwig). Everyone goes on a roller coaster ride of quotidian hurly burly, apocalyptic upheaval and a brief flirtation with the soiled underground world underneath the brightly covered veneer.
“White Noise” is divided into three sections like Don DeLillo’s eighth breakout postmodern book, which I have no interest in reading. “Waves and Radiation” is the opening act which establishes what normal life is like for Jack. “The Airborne Toxic Event” is the cataclysmic upheaval that unsettles the family and those around them. “Dylarama” is a personal, psychological upheaval that permits the characters to use their existential dread to have a trite, sordid chapter in their lives. Nothing bad lasts for that long, and they soon right themselves back to their first act existence feeling a little lighter by exposing their fears to the light, but with death ahead of them.
I love Baumbach’s films. “White Noise” is an extreme departure from his regular style, which is usually more realistic, slower paced, and organic. I applaud him for leaving his comfort zone and his commitment to bringing the source material to life on screen by embracing different film genres in a single film. There are brief scenes of oneiric horror when Jack is terrified of the person in his bedroom, which was my favorite moment in the film. The environmental apocalyptic sequences showed Baumbach has a potential flare for epic action and could compete with the likes of Roland Emmerich with a homage to Cecil B. DeMille’s Angel of Death scene from “The Ten Commandments” (1956). He flirts with film noir in the final act, which felt Lynchian. Most of the film is more colorful and feels as if Baumbach was doing an impression of his friend and occasional film collaborator Wes Anderson though still distinct because there is more than one woman and/or girl in the cast and people do not have a flat affect. Baumbach is conscious and highlights his shortcomings, and the novel’s dialogue could have been his words when Babette chastises Jack for making her issues all about him, which the film does as well.
After 2016, a lot of directors wanted their films to make a statement about how they felt about the downward spiral of our collective soul, but they did it their way. I think that Baumbach is doing the same thing, but it is interesting that on some level, he found his voice inadequate and had to make a patchwork quilt of others’ visual voices and styles to articulate what he wanted to say. Baumbach is a skilled director so when he lacks confidence, he still executes his work on a higher level than most on their best day, but it is not him, not really. He wants to deliver a message of substance, but he does not use his own words, which betrays a hidden self-criticism. Maybe he finds his own words or experiences inadequate to the scope of these challenges. If he subsequently makes more films that feel like this one, then I will admit that I am wrong. I commend him for trying to find a way to address the attraction to extremism and demagogues and society’s response to cataclysm as responses to fear of inevitable death, but it is not his forte, and he never really sits down in the void and looks at himself. Like the movie, when things get too much, he flees for safety and comfort. It could be that Baumbach’s adaptation is a perfect representation of the material, but I came for him, and I did not see him in it as often as I would have liked.
I did not enjoy “White Noise” and would not recommend it. I considered walking out because I found it busy, loud, gaudy and rhythmless. I stayed because I was watching it under ideal conditions: on the big screen in a theater. I was going to watch it at some point so why not now. It did not help that immediately before it, I watched “The Father” (2020), which unexpectedly sucker punched me and left me reeling with its bleak, humanistic approach to universal themes of coping with aging, death and loss. In comparison, Baumbach’s film is hyperstylized and elicited zero emotional response while confronting mortality. An adapted play felt more authentic in its depiction of the human experience in comparison to an adapted book which felt like a play. I am not criticizing the lack of realism or surrealistic nature of the narrative because I loved “Sorry to Bother You” (2018). Even though there are black characters in both films, the fear and concerns in Baumbach’s film for all its characters are white: theoretical, philosophical and ultimately benign though looming. It is the fantasy of fear, which usually makes us demonize the other, which is another reason to praise Baumbach’s film, he never takes that well-worn track, which I appreciate. He dutifully made sure to include people of color as supporting characters and extras. In Bootsy Collins’ film, like many black films, the events and fears are based in reality-financial exploitation, slavery, humiliation. By the end, nothing is the same. It is never fine.
“White Noise” acknowledges the inevitability of death, but suggests that God, who does not exist in this film except as love specifically within the family and faith in the family, will save them. It is sweet, but not after hours of manic tone shifts and hysteria. Baumbach seems to be saying that regardless of the threat, environmental or bad leadership, things will settle down, and you will be fine, which is true for many people, but not for everyone. It is also an annoying and false theory. Everyone fears death, but no one dies onscreen except in theory. The scene with the most potential is when Jack falls prey to group think by following the gun nuts believing that they have an advantage on survival, which I interpreted as silent stand ins for right wingers, lands his family in peril and then they manage to right themselves and rejoin the group. He may critique being sheep, but he is a part of the flock, and he does end up in danger when he strays. For all his criticism of charismatic leaders, he is one, and his son takes after him. This narrative is without lasting consequences. Bad things do not happen to people that you care about. There is no finality, but it is cyclical-normal life, fear, cataclysm, recovery. Must be nice.
My fellow movie patrons thought “White Noise” was hilarious. There is some academia satire, excellent choreography of a duet lecture. During a hotel scene, catch the Elvis references with the song in the background and a man sitting on a toilet. I appreciated the notes, but found it tedious though I was tickled by the image of Don Cheadle and Adam Driver linked at the arms during a chatty stroll. I appreciate that Baumbach is a man that wants to lead with love.
