By: Andrew Wing

White Noise is a 2022 absurdist comedy-drama film, written and directed by Noah Baumbach (Frances Ha, Marriage Story), adapted from the 1985 novel with the same title by Don DeLillo. It is Baumbach's first directed feature not to be based on an original story of his own. The film stars Adam Driver (Marriage Story, Star Wars sequel trilogy), Greta Gerwig (Frances Ha, 20th Century Women), Don Cheadle (Ocean’s Eleven, Avengers: Endgame), Raffey Cassidy (The Killing of a Sacred Deer, Dark Shadows), Sam Nivola, and May Nivola.

Set in the 1980s, Jack Gladney (Driver), professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette (Gerwig), and father to four children/stepchildren, is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an “Airborne Toxic Event”, forcing Jack to confront his biggest fear – his own mortality.

White Noise had its world premiere at the 79th Venice International Film Festival on August 31, 2022, and was released in select cinemas on November 25, 2022, before its streaming release on December 30, by Netflix.

THE GOOD

Going into 2022, there was not a movie I was more excited about than White Noise. Why? Well because it was Noah Baumbach’s first film since Marriage Story, which is one of my all-time favorites, so there was that. But more than that, it was starring my favorite actor, Adam Driver, as a professor of “Hitler studies”, so needless to say I was interested to see what he was going to bring to the table. All that said because it was one of my most anticipated films of 2022, it of course didn’t come out until the second to last day of the year! Regardless, I watched it the first chance I could, but was it worth the wait? Keep reading to find out!

It was! As previously mentioned, I am a huge fan of Baumbach’s, and I was really impressed by what he did in the director’s chair here. This felt like his most daring and ambitious project yet, and while it wasn’t perfect, I still feel like it was an overall success. A lot of the movie is just exploring this strange, heightened world that Baumbach built, and exploring that was honestly one of my favorite parts of the movie. Now this movie is absolutely absurd and everything just feels off and strange, and a lot of that is because of the writing, but it’s also because of the genre-hopping Baumbach does in the movie. At the end of the day, this movie is a dark comedy through and through that is really funny, but at times it felt like a Spielberg adventure movie, while at other times Baumbach does thriller and also noir. I don’t see him getting a Best Director nomination, but nevertheless, I was really impressed by Baumbach’s direction here.

But now to get to what I really want to talk about, and that’s Adam Driver’s performance. Driver plays a man who, like many of us, fears death, and the film follows how he and the other people around him cope with this fear, and I really thought he carried the film. Driver and Baumbach just need to keep making movies together for the rest of eternity because this now marks their fifth movie together and every time Driver just gives another amazing performance so different from the one before. Driver just never allowed me as an audience member to take his character as seriously as the character does himself and he just killed the dry humor in this.

Driver definitely took home the gold here, but all of the other performances were really good too. Baumbach’s wife, Greta Gerwig, plays Babette and I thought she was perfectly cast in this as Babette is this sort of awkward, upbeat, emotional character. Don Cheadle is given some hilarious moments, and I also really liked all of the performances from the actors who played the children in this. I thought they were all very funny and I look forward to seeing what they do down the line.

Aside from the performances though, this movie’s technical elements are just top-notch. I loved the production design here that was just an immaculate feast of 1980s vibes, and as someone who stocks shelves at a supermarket part-time, I was in awe of all the perfectly stocked shelves. Danny Elfman’s score was certainly one of the highlights of the film, Lol Crawley’s vibrant cinematography was remarkable as it felt slightly heightened from our reality, and LCD Soundsystem’s original song “New Body Rhumba” comes on right at the beginning of the end credits and it was just perfectly used and would honestly win the Oscar for Best Original Song if it was up to me.

THE BAD

As good as Baumbach’s direction, the performances, and the techs were, there are just some problems with the film that I had and that most general audiences will have if they watch this. For starters, it feels weird critiquing Baumbach’s writing because he’s one of the best writers working today, but the screenplay just felt inconsistent. Now a lot of that is due to the novel he is adapting into a film being called ‘unadaptable’, but there is just no consistent plot and there are a number of varying tones at play in the film that greatly affected the viewing experience. Also, I think the movie just could’ve been a good fifteen to thirty minutes shorter.

THE VERDICT

Despite its inconsistent plot and the weirdness of it all, White Noise is Noah Baumbach’s most ambitious film yet and I felt it was a true spectacle and an overall success. It’s an absurdist comedy that is really funny throughout and it’s carried by another great Adam Driver performance, and also some stunning cinematography, a fantastic score, and just an awesome original song from LCD Soundsystem!

Now I just need to order the novel right now and get to reading it, so I can rewatch this film and really determine if Baumbach truly adapted the so-called unadaptable.