“White Noise” Movie Review by Rafy Mediavilla (@Rmediavilla) #WhiteNoise
At once hilarious and horrifying, lyrical and absurd, ordinary and apocalyptic, White Noise dramatizes a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world.
It is no secret that I absolutely loved Noah Baumbach and Netflix’s “Marriage Story”. In fact, I loved it so much that I went ahead and even bought the movie as my first-ever Criterion Collection purchase. White Noise can be best described as another type of marriage story but in a different period with a dark comedy tone and an existential crisis at the center of it all.
Even though I absolutely love Marriage Story, this one truly did not click well with me. with this one Noah Baumbach was working with different tones throughout the story, he dealt with comedy into drama and even dived a little bit into the horror genre, but he always struggled to find a defining tone that he will stick through till the final act.
While I enjoyed the scenes between Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle, director Noah Baumbach failed at bringing the kids as part of the story. he constantly deviated between Greta Gerwig character Babbette and Adam Driver character Jack Galdney struggles, while throwing in Don Cheadle character Murray Siskind into the mix from time to time to balance the story between these two characters. The kids truly felt like extras within the story.
It’s impossible not to mention that the performances by Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle are superb. And if you need a reason to watch this movie their performances are reason enough to sit through this 2hrs and change flick. And if you look at the trailer and promos, this movie also shines in the production design, custom design, makeup, and hair styling. Production-wise, they all did great you’re recreating the time’s director Noah Baumbach wanted to explore in this movie. And I cannot leave out the amazing musical number for the end credits which had everyone in the theater sticking around just to see how this pans out.
With all his strong points White Noise is still a difficult movie to recommend mostly because it struggles to find his identity in his narrative as it constantly pulls the story left and right. I also feel it struggles to find its core audience, meaning who are we talking to with this story regarding the existential crisis the couple is going through. With that being said and the movie eventually being on Netflix I would just add just hit play at your risk if you feel you will joy enjoy something like this.
