White Noise
Welcome to Breakout, the MASSIVE scheme sending 12 first-time writers to London Film Festival to write their debut professional film reviews. For the 12 days following the 12 days of the festival, we’ll be publishing the writing of our chosen stars to celebrate cinema at its finest and introduce you to the next generation’s most promising new critics.
Next up, Glasgow’s Becca Leslie reviews White Noise.
Noah Baumbach finds White Noise at his most mainstream: an eclectic, maximalist black comedy which wears its Spielbergian influences on its sleeve. Based on the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo, the film succeeds in finding the heart and humour of the source material, despite reservations by many over its adaptability.
The film follows a year in the life of Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler studies, and his wife Babette as they attempt to find meaning through a bizarre chain of events following an ecological disaster. While usually known for subdued, character-focused comedy-dramas, Baumbach treads new ground with this mega-budget, apocalyptic satire, led by the enthralling performances by Greta Gerwig and Adam Driver breathing life into the story..
The densely philosophical text covers a myriad of grand ideas, but above all else, the story is concerned with the fear of death. The Gladneys are burdened with this all-consuming fear, and the beating heart of the film lies in their attempts to grapple with the inescapable and rejoice in life’s mundanities in spite of it all. “Seems like a boring life,” Jack says. Babette replies: “I hope it lasts forever.”
While the film largely adapts the text strongly in the first 90 minutes, Baumbach’s voice becomes increasingly lost towards the third act, as the script becomes less distinguishable from the novel and loses the momentum it had built up during the epic second act.
White Noise ends on an optimistic note, with a hypnotic and triumphant supermarket dance sequence set to LCD Soundsystem’s new song ‘New Body Rhumba’. Here, the film lays bare its most enduring idea: that despite the madness and the fear, we are all attempting to find meaning and community, even when it seems impossible.
White Noise will be released globally on Netflix on December 2. Check back here for more Breakout reviews.