Title – White Noise (2022) 

Director – Noah Baumbach (Marriage Story) 

Cast – Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle

Plot – Follows the experiences of regular American couple Jack (Driver) and Babette (Gerwig) as they and their family navigate an “Airborne Toxic Event” that brings them face to face with the idea of mortality and the fragility of life. 

“Out of some persistent sense of large-scale ruin, we keep inventing hope”

Review by Eddie on 08/02/2023

It’s never a good sign for a film when its best and most memorable scene comes during its end credits sequence.

Gifted an $80 million dollar budget by Netflix, who were gambling on this film to be a major win for the streaming service and more than likely a player at this year’s awards season, Noah Baumbach goes for broke with his biggest feature yet in a career that has been up to this point one full of critically adored art house efforts but sadly White Noise is a big old swing and a miss for the usually interesting director who struggles in almost all facets to bring Don DeLillo’s oft-regarded unadaptable book to life.

One of those narratives that clearly works better on the page rather than the screen, if you saw the trailer for White Noise prior to watching the full version of Baumbach’s adaptation you’d be right in thinking you were in for an end of the world type black comedy focusing on Adam Driver’s Jack and Greta Gerwig’s Babette and their families experiences in a small American town going through a potentially deadly “Airborne Toxic Event” that turns their routine lives upside down, forcing them to confront headfirst their ideas of mortality and the fear of death that hangs over them.

Set in the 1980’s, White Noise certainly captures the feeling and atmosphere of the time and if there was any way that Netflix’s expensive product feels like the sum of its monetary cost it’s in this area with everything else feeling very much like a typical Baumbach feature without the wit, verve and likable characters his been able to bring to life in notable efforts such as The Squid and the Whale and the much better and worthwhile Netflix collaborations The Meyerowitz Stories and Marriage Story that showcased the best of the writer/director, which makes White Noise even more disappointing when you look back and consider just how lost and disjointed this venture feels.

All the elements seemingly where aligned for Baumbach to make things work on screen once more and there are sure to be fans of DeLillo’s book that find this screen version to be a success, with much of the books dialogue and key sequences in tact here as far as I am aware but even his long-term collaborator Adam Driver can’t do much here, while Baumbach’s muse and real-life partner Greta Gerwig feels miscast as the complicated Babette and whereas Baumbach’s talent rich ensembles are usually shining lights, here in White Noise a collection of talented performers which includes Don Cheadle, Bill Camp and Jodie Turner-Smith can’t make the films complicated and misleading plot work.

Sure to frustrate many a viewer who has been led to believe White Noise is something that it most definitely is not, this high-reaching exercise much rank as Baumbach’s biggest misstep yet and another unfortunate failure of Netflix’s awards pitches that includes the underappreciated Bardo and the disappointment’s that were The Pale Blue Eye, The Good Nurse and The Wonder.

Final Say –

No one could argue that White Noise isn’t an ambitious film in its peculiar way but this dialogue heavy and narratively disjointed feature is a major failure from Baumbach who has seemingly lost sight of what makes his films so watchable with a big budget and a canvas of someone else’s materials at his disposal.

1 excited group of supermarket shoppers out of 5