White Noise (2022)

Let's Face the Music and Dance

or

"That's a Little Stupid." "It's What Happens to Desperate People."

White Noise (noun) Merriam-Webster

1 : a: a heterogeneous mixture of sound waves extending over a wide frequency range

compare pink noise

b: a constant background noise

especially : one that drowns out other sounds

2 : meaningless or distracting commotion, hubbub, or chatter

 

Wikipedia page of White Noise (novel) sub-section: Analysis

"White Noise explores several themes that emerged during the mid-to-late twentieth century, e.g., rampant consumerism, media saturation, novelty academic intellectualism, underground conspiracies, the disintegration and reintegration of the family, human-made disasters, and the potentially regenerative nature of violence. The novel's style is characterized by a heterogeneity that utilizes "montages of tones, styles, and voices that have the effect of yoking together terror and wild humor as the essential tone of contemporary America."

 

One could mistake Noah Baumbach's film of White Noise as a meditation on current times with pandemics, conspiracy theories, and just plain crazy people...if the film weren't based on a Don DeLillo novel written in 1985. Funny how really good writers "get it right." Not funny how the human collective keeps making the same mistakes over and over and over (and over)...as if we were crazy or something.

The protagonists are the family of J.A.K. Gladney (Adam Driver, ubiquitously), an academic at "The College On the Hill" teaching an "Advanced Nazism" course—he's not "pro," he's "con" but does deep-dive analysis on the self-proclaimed "Thousand Year Reich" (they got that wrong, too!)—and his analyses (and those of his peers at the college) sound an awful lot like that Wikipedia "analysis" of DeLillo's novel. His wife, Babette—call her "Baba"—(Greta Gerwig)—"We're each other's fourth"—has (as a colleague notes) "important hair," and focuses on self-improvement, running the steps of the college's stadium and taking "posture classes." They have four kids from four marriages, but seem to be settling in to the chaos, despite the constant conversation, the randomness, and the clash of personalities and interests.

They are white, liberal, self-satisfied and pretentious, the latter being honed to a fine art, as Gladney's lectures on the rise of Nazism border on performance (Driver is brilliant at this) and life is good. It's so good, that any trivial subject can be analyzed and micro-scoped for nuance and monlogued over where, if done right, it can scrape raw hints of guilt and self-loathing. The inherent capacity for human beings to be fascinated by car crashes, for instance—as is lectured about by Murray Siskind (Don Cheadle) in the opening sequence. We, as a species, seem to be drawn to disaster.

 

Well, as the saying goes: "Watch Out What You Wish For." In fact, that sounds like a lecture, too.

White Noise is split into three parts, the first of which is:

1. Waves and Radiation

It serves as an introduction to the characters when times are good and we see them at their best and most convivial. Things are so good that one can be a bit jejune and deprecating about it, while feeling superior at the same time. But, things are simmering under the surface and all it will take will be some catastrophic event to test the rigor of the self-satisfied complacency of the extended nuclear family.

2. The Airborne Toxic Event

Some rando truck driver carrying explosive chemicals is reaching for his bottle of Jack Daniels, distracted just enough that he doesn't see the guard-rail come down for a crossing train—that is also carrying explosive chemicals—and plows into it, derailing it, and causing a massive explosion with a resulting cloud of burning schmutz, that causes the evacuation of nearby towns.

The Gladneys make a run for it to one of the camp-grounds stipulated as evacuation sites for the populace. But, so is everyone else, so the resulting snake of traffic keeps them in place for a much longer time than one can be complacent about. They are refugees from suburbia, displaced with as few comforts as they can carry. It's a far-cry from the comforts they are used to, with a looming chemical waste that can kill you if you're not sheltered in place. Of course, there are theories and fears and resentments that bubble up among the many strangers lumped in together without the comforts of drywall and fences.

For J.A.K.—that's "Jack"—this merely exacerbates his growing unease of death which haunts his dreams with sheeted figures in his bed that have replaced his wife and which strangle him with scarred hands, granting him no peace. And, there is the fear that the toxins have poisoned him, as well, since he left the safety of the get-away car for the 2½ minutes it took to fill it up with gas. The government officials who analyze and herd the evacuees give little comfort ("You are not to leave the facility. That means if you come up to me later and ask 'Can I leave?' the answer will still be no"). By the time, they get home, J.A.K. is starting to obsess about his 2½ exposure and seeks medical advice. But, there's something wrong with Babette, too.

3. Dylarama

Well, you've got to have some surprises, so the less said the better. But, it wraps up a lot of things that have been brewing in Parts 1 and 2, concentrating on the domestic drama tilting the seemingly self-satisfied and stable Gladney house. 

Baumbach keeps things off-center with long takes without too much directorial show-boating, but making sure everything's paced briskly and usually with a comedic punctuation at the exit. The tone is set by a lush Danny Elfman score, that, at times, evokes Randy Newman's score for Baumbach's previous film. The performances are uniformly excellent and manage to make the characters less insufferable than they could be.

I loved it, but, then I tend towards the dark, finding it cheering (and probably as I also tend to the pretentious, finding it amusing). In fact, I was quite thrilled with it, having to recommend it heartily to whoever would hear it. Probably because in the course of a film with heavy themes and dour prospects, it is so optimistic.

Margot at the Wedding

Written at the time of the film's release....

Margot at the Wedding (Noah Baumbach, 2008) Margot (Nicole Kidman) is a short-story author living in Manhattan with her estranged husband Jim (John Turturro). For reasons best known to herself, she takes a train upstate to attend the wedding of her estranged sister Pauline (Jennifer Jason Leigh) to Malcolm (Jack Black), an "artist" of no specific discipline. With Margot is her son Claude (Zane Pais), who along with a scriptwriting colleague (the great Ciarán Hinds), are probably the only people she's not estranged from.There's no pleasing Margot. If you try, she'll think you're trying to pull something over on her. Everything's a plot. Nothing is satisfactory. She is brutally honest, even when she's not being honest about it. If she can't probe a weakness, she'll create one to provoke one. And she's only too happy to purloin life-incidents for her fiction.Although one wonders if she recognizes what fiction might be.

Noah Baumbach's last film was the critically acclaimed The Squid and the Whale which astutely recreated the eddies and shoals and snags of conversations that are the dripping water torturing a marriage or any relationship. Things either wear down or they break under such a test, there is no middle ground, and there is no respite from the constant flow. In Squid the human beings were just trying to survive. Here, with Margot, survival's a foregone conclusion, it's just a matter of how many people she can take down in the process. There is no tying her down, it'd be like nailing Jell-o to the wall or having a pleasant conversation with Ann Coulter—it's not done.

You can't reason with a sociopath.

This sort of stuff is indie film gold, and Baumbach is a master at the circular conversation that goes nowhere, and the humor that can be found in absurd power struggles. But there's almost too much of a bad thing here, you can probably time the intervals between the incidents of cast-members breaking down, getting slapped, or getting punched. And Baumbach also is alarmingly unsubtle about the glaring Big Symbol of It All—another "Nature" metaphor that threatens to literally knock the audience over the head with its obviousness. But Baumbach gets one thing exactly right—the only one with any sense is the family dog.

The cast is uniformly excellent and unselfish in spreading the unpleasantness around. If there is one weak link it's Jack Black, but only because he will hammer the joke home, rather than let the words speak for themselves. Everyone else excels at leaving things unsaid when their characters can't leave well enough alone.

Greenberg

Written at the time of the film's release...

"The Boy in the Spastic Bubble"

The latest film by Noah Baumbach, Greenberg is a tour de force for actor Ben Stiller, who knows how to marginalize audiences himself (he directed The Cable Guy and Tropic Thunder, after all). Combine him with the writer-director of The Squid and the Whale and Margot at the Wedding and you have two individuals creating something capable of making you squirm uncomfortably (in your comfortable theater seat) for its entire two hours, waiting for (if it were so formulaic) a reckoning of devastating proportions.

That would be letting you off easy.

Roger Greenberg (Stiller) is recovering from a nervous breakdown, and is house-sitting his brother's place and dog in L.A.—a place where he can relax in the hills above the smog and try to put his life back together. A carpenter by trade, it is his goal to build the dog a dog-house. "I'm really trying to do nothing for awhile," is his stock answer. "That's brave at our age," says an old flame (Jennifer Jason Leigh, who co-wrote the story) that was extinguished long ago. Greenberg tries to connect with old friends from school days, but as he didn't communicate with anybody while he lived in New York, there's not much in common anymore. 

Greenberg is essentially stifled. Not capable of moving forward and paralyzed at the thought of doing something to change that ("I woke up one morning and literally my legs couldn't move. They said it was psychological."), he exists through the day not calling people, then wondering why nobody talks to him. He's insensitive to other people's needs, wants or emotions—he can't see past his own smog drifting through his mind.

Because there's nothing else to do—he doesn't drive, not terribly convenient in L.A.—he ends up seducing his brother's nanny (Greta Gerwig), herself a fairly directionless person, numbed by a recent break-up and a tendency to be too compliant.

But, the relationship is one way and it all sucks towards Roger. A psycho-narcissist, he is so self-absorbed that any empathy perspective or ambition save for animal imperatives have been consumed and purged. A nanny is perfect for him, as he hasn't grown up. At all. And seems doomed to drive off any kind soul, sympathetic enough to put up with his bullying in-denial bullshit.

Now, let's pause for a second. We've been talking about Greenberg this whole time. let's talk about YOU for a moment.

YOU are NOT Greenberg.*

Oh, you might be in your worst moments—everybody can reach their limits of tolerance, have a crisis or a bad hair day and be less than 20%. And Greenburg can be a litmus test for anyone the least bit self-absorbed (but not in denial). I've already read a couple of reviews that seem to cast the writer's own issues onto a scenario that don't suggest them. So, yes, you will recognize yourself and others in this movie (all except for you, Mother Theresa), but you are not Greenberg. If you were, you'd already be dealing with it by subsisting on some anti-psychotic, anti-hysteric, anti-depression pharmaceutical to get past it. And understand, this is Greenberg's behavior ON Zoloft.

So, this movie can make you crazy. I had waves of wanting to strangle this 40 year old infant...if he weren't already doing it to himself. Reactions to a movie like this can be healthy; at least, I didn't want to walk out. And there is the least amount of some resolution to this guy who isn't happy unless he can hear himself talk.

Still, this is one to take in stages...at home.

* I succumbed to this. I can be insensitive, self-absorbed (I write...duh), and fail to recognize the needs of others. The one that hit me the hardest is that Greenberg occupies his time writing complaining letters to...everyone. And what have I been doing? Writing movie reviews (I blame you, you read them). But, I've been doing other things as well. I have the most finely buffed and polished resume in town. My dog has his waist back (it's been a long Winter), and the taxes were done sooo long ago. I am not Greenberg. You are not Greenberg.

But THAT guy? Oh, man! (*tsk*) Def-initely.

Marriage Story

"It's All About You" (But, It Can't Be About Everybody Simultaneously)
or
"You don't want to be married...not really." "But, I didn't want this."

Noah Baumbach's new film Marriage Story begins with opening arguments, like a trial, but with all the best intentions. Nicole Barber (Scarlett Johansson) in voice-over talks about the things she admires about her husband Charlie (Adam Driver). Never mind what the details are, they're spelled out on camera as she goes over them. Then, it's Charlie's turn. And as with hers, it's a glowing review of what impresses and endears Nicole to him. It may not BE them in reality, but it's what the other observes, retains, and endears that person to them.

In which case, it's just as much about the writer as it is the subject.

What those opening minutes is about is not opening arguments, it's therapy. Charlie and Nicole are in couples' therapy, trying to fix their marriage...or "re-adjust" it might be the better term. And when things have become strained—strained enough to go to couples' therapy—it's always a good exercise to do that "What I like about you" essay in order to try and re-ignite the relationship pilot-light that's been doused by coaxing the parties to recall why they got together in the first place. It's a history exercise while ignoring the history that has occurred since. Anyway, it's a good exercise for a counselor to try, especially if the pair are easily susceptible to reconciliation by just remembering what they've forgotten.

It doesn't work so well for Nicole and Charlie—they don't even read their essays. And Nicole is in such a state of agitated self-doubt, she doesn't think that what she's written is good enough. That's what she says, anyway. Maybe she thinks it's pointless to read it. Charlie, on the other hand, would be more than happy to read his—if Nicole will read hers. Maybe we should mention that Nicole is an actress and Charlie is a director. Both live in New York now and have for some time. Charlie moved there to pursue his theater ambitions. Nicole had made a splash in a teen movie and had moved to New York to pursue acting challenges and it's there where the two met, formed a theater company, and married and had one child, a boy, Henry (Azhy Robertson).

Charlie just won a MacArthur grant and Nicole has a chance for a role on a sci-fi series that shooting on the West Coast. Charlie's supportive (and all), but he won't be going with her because the little play she was starring in and Charlie directed is on a track to go to Broadway (BROAD-WAY!) and he kinda doesn't understand why she would leave the cast and go do that sci-fi thing. But, who knows if the pilot will get picked up so, sure, he's "okay" with it. "Go do your little space-pilot."

"What's this?" "You have been served."

But, what to do with Henry? Nicole's family is back there, so that's a slam-dunk. But, Charlie's doing all this prep for Broadway and trying to keep the company together, and it's a little inconvenient to go schlepping across the country to see his own kid.

So, are you starting to see where this is heading? Are you starting to realize why they were in couple's therapy at the beginning of the movie, even BEFORE we knew there were these issues? 

It becomes apparent that, when the pair aren't together, that Charlie is a bit clueless about what's going on and how deeply felt Nicole's alienation is, so when he goes out to Los Angeles and everybody from Nicole's family is all-smiles and glad to see him, he is caught flat-footed when he's served with divorce papers instead of a family meal. Then, the fine details begin to appear. The divorce is being done in L.A.—it was filed there, Nicole is residing there and that's where her attorney is—so Charlie, working in New York, has to travel to Los Angeles for it. It also means that if he wants custody—or even visitation rights—of his child, he must establish a residence in Los Angeles. As someone points out, if the kid's best interest is in mind, why is all the money for the kid's education being wasted for appearances sake?

The first lawyer Charlie consults (Ray Liotta) has a good reputation of being a bad-ass attorney and, resultingly, a high retainer and their first interaction does not go well—the attorney is already in attack mode and Charlie hasn't quite gotten there yet as it's all pretty new to him. It also seems that the way Charlie has lived his life has been completely counter to how the law system will favorable grant him a consideration of custody. 

He switches tactics then, going with a more folksy lawyer (Alan Alda), who is more human but less effectual, has the warm-fuzzies and keeps it on a more human level and (frankly) is a last resort to meet a filing deadline, which could have lost him custody—or any visitation time, even if he'd been Mother Theresa.

Nicole, on the other side of the judicial scales, has hired Nora Fanshaw (Laura Dern) who has a warm, sympathetic side and a competitive side, wanting the best outcome for her clients, but one also gets the impression it's all about her. Let's be fair; all the lawyers have that and how they play up the customer service aspect is based on their personalities. Like psychiatrists, one has to find the right fit, and that may take many tries. But one thing is consistent: the laws are made to benefit lawyers, not real human beings. They do their dance, wear their outfits, and rely on the least common denominator, or the people who throw up their hands in frustration at the slightest complication for the system to deal with its clutter. The legal system is a jungle and its survival of the fittest, or the most stubborn, or the ones with the most money.

The devil is in the details and Baumbach's meticulous piling-on of the roadblocks and legal hoops makes the compelling case that the charitably nimble are the one best able to adapt of the species. He's aided and abetted by extraordinary performances throughout, but chief among them being his leads, Scarlett Johansson and Adam Driver. Talk about nimble: Driver has always been good—he's a subtle chameleon—but Johansson is so good that she is frequently taken for granted (Hmmm...). Both actors give a master-class in making the mundane interesting and Baumbach's unforgiving camera would pick up any false note that might flicker across a face. There's no danger of that with this cast, with Liotta being the most theatrical, Dern being the most calculating and Johansson and Driver being the most fiercely submerged in their parts.

Any movie is reflected and consumed by what the viewer brings to it, whatever life experience and prejudices they kaleidoscope it through. During the watching of it, I kept wondering if Baumbach's sympathies were with Charlie than Nicole (he's not—Charlie's the most screwed up of the couple and has the most territory to change in the plot) and whether some reviewer is going to dismiss it as an irrelevancy and another film about the troubles of the White-Privileged. Sorry, but the cast of Parasite could play this movie, and it would be just as pointed with David Oyelowo and Taraji P. Henson top-lining it. I'd love to see that movie. But, this is superb just as it is.

My favorite shot of the film—it's a last-minute visual pun, but also
shows that Driver's Charlie has turned a corner.

I've never flat-out loved a film of Baumbach's before, although I know lots of people who've regarded well The Squid and the Whale (which I'll have to revisit—I'll become a big fan of Jeff Daniels in the last year)or Margot at the Wedding or Greenberg (which I'll re-post reviews of next week)—after seeing those three, I'd passed on Baumbach's work ever since (with the exception of his documentary about Brian DePalma because...well...DePalma), but I'm attempting to get through The Meyerowitz Stories (it's tough) and I suppose Frances Ha is a "must." But, frankly, Marriage Story is such a revelation and engaged me far more than any of his films have.  

In fact, it is hard for me to decide which is the best film of the year—this one or Greta Gerwig's Little Women. But, given that the two are a couple, and the film's couldn't be more different from each other, I'll pass on deciding which one is the better. I'd hate to come between the alliance of two such extraordinary film makers.

Even if their next work is a collaboration, Barbie, about (yes) a Barbie doll that wants to escape her Malibu Dreamhouse existence for life in the real world.