White Noise
Adapting Don DeLillo's postmodern novel of 1985, Noah Baumbach enters new territory with mixed results.
Sam Nivola, Adam Driver, May Nivola, Greta Gerwig and Raffey Cassidy
The first thing that needs to be said here is that I have never read the book which is the basis for this new film written and directed by Noah Baumbach. Don DeLillo’s novel, published in 1985, has been described as unfilmable and those familiar with it will inevitably be making comparisons with the original and deciding whether or not Baumbach has shown that contention to be correct. I, in contrast, can only look at what is on the screen and assess that on its own terms. Viewed in that light, rather more than two-thirds of the film fascinates even if it is highly unorthodox, but the last 45 minutes or more (this is a long work lasting some 136 minutes) cease to function effectively.
The key to enjoying the good things in White Noise is to recognise and accept from the outset that this is not a film that ever seeks to be naturalistic. To adopt that approach is by no means unknown in cinema, but what is unexpected is to have such a film which, divided into three Acts labelled as such, adopts a different tone of stylisation for each of them. In the case of Act I, we are offered a satirical study centred on academics and their families. The central figures are a college professor, Jack Gladney (Adam Driver), and his wife Babette (Greta Gerwig), a couple with four children, one of their own and three from previous marriages. But before we meet them the film has an opening sequence in which a colleague of Jack, Murray Suskind (Don Cheadle), is seen expounding to his students on how we respond to films featuring crashing vehicles. This makes for a lively start (crash scenes are edited in) and sets the film’s tone of mockery. Be the subject cinema (as in the first scene), Hitler (the figure on whom Jack is a noted expert) or Elvis (Murray’s special interest), the film allows that academics can offer real insights but also pokes fun at over-intellectualism and eccentric extremism. Jack, for instance, is secretly having lessons in German alarmed at the thought that his inability to speak the language might, if known, undermine his status as an expert on Hitler giving courses on ‘Advanced Nazism’. Similarly, when it comes to home life and talk within the family, any discussion can turn into a logical dissection of words that reflects an academic mindset (Heinrich, Jack’s son from his first marriage, is still a youth but is already showing signs of becoming an intellectual).
This opening section of White Noise works well and makes one aware of assets which will support the film throughout. First, there is the quality of the acting. Adam Driver’s central performance is beautifully judged, rendering Jack comic but not a caricature so that, despite the film’s stylisation, he has a reality to him. Then there is Don Cheadle who hits exactly the right note as Murray. The youngsters are good too – Babette’s teenage daughter is played by Raffey Cassidy, while the roles of her younger daughter, Steffie and of Jack’s son Heinrich are in the safe hands of May and Sam Nivola (themselves the children of Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer). But, aside from Driver, it is Greta Gerwig who has the most substantial role. Babette has developed an acute fear of death and, early on in the film, it is revealed that she is secretly taking a drug named Dylar in order to combat that. This will set up a prime concern of the film, the knowledge in all of us that we will have to face death, but even here humour continues to feature. Jack and Babette will talk about fate and Babette’s wish to die before Jack, but it will all be discussed analytically and with a nod to the audience we will be told by Jack that all plots lead to death. The sense that White Noise is at once a reflection of reality and a work of heightened tone is perfectly caught in the colour photography of Lol Crawley, while Danny Elfman's music score is fully supportive of that too.
When we get to Act II, it is described as ‘The Airborne Toxic Event’. This does not come out of the blue in that images of an accident have been intercut during Act I (the editing by Matthew Hannam is admirable). We are shown a travelling truck which has chemicals on board (a sight to recall Steven Spielberg’s Duel) and then we witness the catastrophe as it crashes into a train and leads to an explosion. Act II depicts the consequence of this as the toxic cloud resulting from it leads to evacuation of homes in the area, including that of the Gladneys. As they take to the road in their car, the movie takes on a fresh character as it depicts a state of emergency with traffic jams on the highways. Particularly in this second Act one is aware of Baumbach’s accomplishment in moving into new territory. From the start of this movie, he has moved into a world quite different from that of his earlier intimate movies as best exemplified by Marriage Story (2019) and now he successfully echoes the style of Hollywood disaster movies. Yet, even more pertinently, the scenes of chaos on the roads bring to mind Godard’s Weekend (1967), another stylised work of social comment.
The fact is that by this stage what has already been implied becomes crystal clear: White Noise is a film which resonates not through its narrative as such, but due to the implications that arise from it and which we recognise as being part and parcel of our own lives. DeLillo may have written his novel in the 1980s, but, remarkably, Baumbach’s film of it speaks to the present moment. The panic-inducing emergency of the Airborne Toxic Event depicted in the film carries these days a parallel with pollution and even more with the impact of Covid. Official responses shown in the film, including divergent ones, echo Covid strategies and arguments over the need for vaccinations and, as we hear clear-cut instructions announced and then reversed, the incompetence of so many in authority is underlined. The uncertainties reflect what life in the 21st-century has become with its lack of confidence in those in power and a readiness by some to believe unbelievable conspiracy theories and fake news. Just once up to this point, Baumbach misjudges the stylisation (that’s in Act I when he cuts together speeches on Hitler and Elvis by Jack and Murray respectively as though they were happening in conjunction and here the unreality is complete, the divorce from reality total). As a whole, though, Baumbach’s direction undoubtedly impresses.
But then we come to Act III with the Gladneys back home. This accounts for a substantial part of the running time and it proves to be a real let-down. There is a significant switch of focus here with Babette’s drug issues becoming central in such a way that they lead to Jack seeking revenge on the supplier (Lars Eidinger) who has demanded sex as part of the transaction. Earlier the drug dependency can seem comparable to current opioid issues, but this subsequent development of her storyline (even though it includes an affecting scene for Greta Gerwig) remains highly stylised and it plays out in an entirely exaggerated way while losing all the contemporary resonance which makes White Noise so telling it its best. It is the case that earlier the satire co-exists with a certain sympathy for the characters and that is fitting when so much that assails them also are affects us. However, the last third or so of White Noise becomes increasingly meaningless as the narrative itself comes to dominate instead of the connections that we recognise in it. A spark of imagination at the very end of the film has been admired by some, although the scene in question has been interpreted in more ways than one. What is absolutely clear is that Baumbach’s film is divisive. But, if its later stages fall short, there is much here to stimulate the adventurous filmgoer. Arguments about its merits can be guaranteed.
MANSEL STIMPSON
Cast: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy, May Nivola, Sam Nivola, Lars Eidinger, André L. Benjamin, Jodie Turner-Smith, Sam Gold, George Drakoulias, Barbara Sukowa, Kenneth Lonergan.
Dir Noah Baumbach, Pro Noah Baumbach, David Heyman and Uri Singer, Screenplay Noah Baumbach, from the novel by Don DeLillo, Ph Lol Crawley Pro Des Jess Gonchor, Ed Matthew Hannam, Music Danny Elfman, Costumes Ann Roth.
BB Film Productions/Heyday Films/Netflix Studios/Passage Pictures (II)-Netflix.
136 mins. USA/UK. 2022. US Rel: 25 November 2022. UK Rel: 30 December 2022. Cert. 12.
