FilmSnobReviews

Title: White Noise
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Noah Baumbach
Starring: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Raffey Cassidy
Runtime: 2 hrs 5 mins

What It Is: Both Jack (Driver) and Babette (Gerwig) have has previous marriages and children from those. So now their “bunch” of sorts all live under one roof. This has led to a mania out right at every moment. Now Babette is taking some sort of unknown pill and Jack and her eldest from her first Denise (Cassidy) are concerned about her. Meanwhile a catastrophe has struck and they’re just trying to live their lives, for whatever that’s worth.

What We Think: This film is an utter mess. It’s pacing and story are so inconsistent. Driver and Baumbach previously teamed up to make my favorite film of 2019 Marriage Story.What happened? This adaptation of Don DeLillo’s book is so damn messy. Baumbach writes as if he hasn’t ever seen a movie. He constructs the film as if he has never told a story. What saves him is getting great performances out of his cast. Driver is a mile a minute and Gerwig brings the correct manic energy needed to portray Babette. Even the ancillary characters here are doing tremendous work, even if it is with almost nothing.

Our Grade: C, If not for the work of the cast this film would’ve fallen flat on his face. That being said it’s a good film to throw on if you wanna waste two hours. It’s far too long though…by the way. That’s the biggest problem I think in regards to the pacing. There’s far FAR too much time to fill. With all that said it’s a film that’s only…okay but never reaches the potential it had to start with. Baumbach can, and has, done better. Perhaps it’ll be better some other time he will probably collab with Driver again…and I think he’ll never stop working with Gerwig. Not the worst people to have at your disposal as an auteur.