I came to White Noise with a couple of perspectives, which in a way made it one of the more complex viewing experiences of this year. Let me elaborate… Firstly, Noah Baumbach is unequivocally one of my favourite film-makers of all time, he has never directed a film that I did not love or greatly enjoy, however despite my feelings that he completely perfected his regular formula with his seminal masterpiece Marriage Story (which has already aged better than I could have ever thought it would), it did feel as if Baumbach needed to go beyond his normal forms. But then again, that’s just a retrospective thought after coming face to face with this beast of a film. After Marriage Story, I could very gladly have continued to watch incredibly accomplished comedic dramas in the vein he has presented of reality and pathos thus far in his career. But now with White Noise all of Baumbach’s De Palma-ian influences and more epic scale visions have come to bare in a broad and fanciful and similarly accomplished piece of work that leads him as a writer and director into new terrains of scale and craft that frankly I’m sure many of us knew he could handle, but not many of us felt would be this removed from films such as Squid and the Whale or Greenberg, or even the incredible simplicity of Frances Ha. This is bold, colourful, darkly acerbic and incredibly biting work that paints on the biggest canvas of Baumbach’s career thus far, and is thankfully a successful endeavour indeed.
Then there is the second perspective. I think it’s also key to comment into his review that I came to this film as more or less solely a Baumbach devotee, as this is my first exposure to anything Don DeLillo, the critically lauded writer who penned the original novel that this film is based upon. The novel was DeLillo’s first major success and even watching this adaptation, I can feel in some ways where it places in his cannon, as a first major explosive entrance onto the literary scene. The film brims with the ambition and the expanse that many first books have, bar of course this time in the case of Baumbach’s adaptation it is bolstered by years and years of work in the industry. I’m sure there are many fans of the novel who will balk at some things I may say in this review, reading it from their perspective, however I thoroughly enjoyed my wholly fresh introduction to this story and these characters. It goes without saying that it is an alienating film. I have yet to have the pleasure of talking with anybody about it in my circles, but I already know that people will either click with what the film is going for or completely remain at a distance. Now; White Noise it goes without saying, does not have much lenience for its audience I find, I say that not in a bad way, just to establish from the off that if you don’t find the film wholly enthralling from the off, then I very much doubt it will grab you come the third act – the film does in no way budge from its awfully acute vision and presentation. As a matter of fact the film’s three entirely distinctive acts may very well be the most divisive aspect of all, as frankly although I think all three are of a major quality, it goes without saying that the middle act of the film is an incredibly ambitious and completely pulled off minor apocalypse film with a dark wit and a bleak comedy to it – and for that matter that the first or third act may be more to people’s taste. The first act is terrain Baumbach has touched upon prior, never to this scale or with this much arch about it, but pretentions of academia and the overly intellectual is nothing new for him, but full epic action and tension sequences infused with a darkly comic edge and more than a few homages to broad 80’s comedies are far from regular things we see in a Baumbach movie – but the joy of the film is that despite how vastly separate this is from a While We’re Young, it is certainly no less masterfully done, even if it less easily accessible. All of the talent involved with the film really does bring Baumbach’s manic whilst mannered vision to the screen, with the editing of Matthew Hannam punctuating comedy, drama and even horror at times. Yes, just when you thought Baumbach had no more genres to fit into this melting pot and show his talents at, he gives a truly horrifying brief nightmare sequence. The film is further bettered by the cinematography of Lol Crawley, who manages to paint the broad and beautiful colours of this bizarre world, whilst also presenting a heightened yet realistic 80’s anamorphic grain.
The ensemble of
the film is all working in a very specific and acute tune that frankly may be
the great tight-rope of the film, if it were not for the fact that very little
is done to alter or adapt from this tone. It’s less of a tight-rope and more of
a regiment. All this is to say that every person in the cast is working on
top-form when it comes to this incredibly specific and mannered way of speech
and dialogue, most of which is largely lifted from the original novel by
DeLillo. It’s mannered beyond all reason and it’s funny and it’s dark and it’s
biting and it’s cutting and it’s emotional and it’s arch and its performative,
all in one acute bundle of complexities and simplicities. At the end of the day
someone who does not wish to meet the film on its terms could very simply dismiss
the whole fashion of speech by commenting on it as monotone or dry. This would
be to ignore the intentionality of the piece, but is also an opinion that one
can hardly be annoyed about it. Afterall even as someone who enjoyed the film,
it does take time to sync with the running train that this film is, for the
train will never stop or slow down in any way. Don Cheadle’s character is one
like the rest who is performed brilliantly, but opens the film with a bout of
intellectualism, but with a more warm quality than many of the other
characters, whose resourcefulness or blasé nature over-rides their emotions it
seems. Then we meet somewhat polar opposites with Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig,
who are both I feel genuinely excellent in this film, and whatever comments one
many have about their turns can be very easily justified by where their
characters go and end up, but again I can understand why people may be turned
off by their performances here. But still both Driver and Gerwig manage to be
just as delightfully funny as they are emotionally complex, it’s those tiny
moments of slapstick or wit in the middle of horror that remind us above all
else that this is a Baumbach feature. Everybody beyond these chief three,
whether it be members of their family with May and Sam Nivola, Raffey Cassidy,
or Lars Eidinger as a depraved individual, or even Andre 3000, theatre director
Sam Gold and Jodie Turner Smith as work colleagues, brings everything to the
table and very little is left behind. Baumbach has managed to make a perfect
film in many ways, with a few caveats… However I am fully aware that my caveats
are few and yet for many I have no doubt the caveats may be endless. Again,
this is incredibly acute work. ‘Love it or hate it’ indeed.
A bold and complex 9/10 that does very little to endear its audience one may find, however if one goes along for the ride that Baumbach is offering, then one will undoubtedly find an awful lot to admire and mull over, if not a lot to love or cling to emotionally. Whereas Baumbach’s other films have been simple and immediately impactful dramas and comedies about intellectuals, this is instead a deeply intellectual film, which also I have no doubt will be dismissed by many as empty. I did not find it empty however and laughed and was touched and was awed by the new-found talents of scale and craft that Baumbach has added to his oeuvre.
P.S. Another ‘love it or hate it’ element of the film no doubt is that final credits dance sequence set to a new LCD Sound-system track called New Body Rhumba. Well, again, I loved it and felt the choreography, tone, film-making and the phenomenal track accompanying it, balanced to make the perfect bizarre and absurdist conclusion that this film needed to stick its simultaneously bleak and open ending. As a matter of fact all of the music throughout is sublime, with Danny Elfman providing a score that perfectly encapsulates all of the film’s many tonal guises.
- -Thomas Carruthers
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