Noah Baumbach’s surreal apocalyptic epicWhite Noisehas received mixed reviews since it dropped on Netflix. The film has been praised for its stunning cinematography, the cast’s mesmerizing performances, and Danny Elfman’s typically catchy musical score, but its lengthy runtime, disjointed script, and disparate jumble of tones have polarized critics. Parts ofWhite Noiseplay like a harrowing drama, while other parts play like an absurdist comedy. So, is the movie supposed to be a comedy, a drama, something in between the two, or something else entirely?
Don DeLillo’s source novel was published in 1985, but Baumbach’s movie adaptation proves how timely its story is in a post-pandemic world. With its depiction of misinformation spreading during an apocalyptic crisis and its portrayal of the local supermarket as a temple of American commerce,White Noisecould’ve been written today. The “Airborne Toxic Event” is a perfect parallel for COVID-19.Adam Driver starsas Jack Gladney, a pioneering professor of Hitler studies who struggles to keep his family together after a catastrophic train crash casts a cloud of chemical waste over their town.
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Like the book,Baumbach’s filmis divided into three parts, each with its own wildly different tone. The first part introduces the Gladney clan with a satire of family dysfunctions and establishes Jack’s niche academic field with a satire of academia. The second part kicks off with the train crash unleashing the “Airborne Toxic Event,” necessitating a town-wide evacuation. The third and final part picks up after the toxic cloud has cleared and normalcy has returned. When Jack learns that his wife had an affair, he becomes fixated on killing the man she slept with.
Every chapter of the movie deals with a different theme. The early scenes focus on the strained communication between families, the middle section focuses on the anxiety and paranoia surrounding a widespread deadly event, and the final sequence focuses on Jack’s jealousy and men’s capacity for senseless violence. As itconstantly changes its tone,White Noisebecomes too messy and unfocused to feel cohesive, but the messiness is part of its anxious charm. The second half of the film leans into Jack’s ever-worsening thanatophobia (fear of death) after unwittingly exposing himself to the toxic cloud while refueling the car, but the neurosis of fearing the inevitable is portrayed as suitably absurd.
There are a ton of hilarious moments inWhite Noisethatsatirize the COVID climate, like an announcement in the supermarket followed by another announcement telling shoppers to disregard that announcement followed by another announcement telling them to regard it again. Driver gives a decidedly comedic performance as Jack. He nails all the deadpan line deliveries, like when the car is submerged in a creek and the kids are distracted with mindless nonsense: “Doesn’t anyone want to pay attention to what is actually happening?” The final scene seems to tell the audience not to take what they just saw too seriously. Once again, the family convenes at their local supermarket – treated in the film as a kind of church of capitalism – where they break into a choreographed dance with all their co-stars through the aisles, set to “New Body Rhumba” (recorded specifically for the movie by LCD Soundsystem). This ending is so silly and out there that it closes the movie on a big laugh and undermines anything serious that came before it.
Most of Baumbach’s movies walk a fine line between comedy and drama, mixing humor and tragedy to reflect the emotional disorder of everyday life. He usually starts off with a dramatic premise:The Squid and the Whaleis about two boys processing their parents’ divorce,Frances Hais about an aimless twentysomethingwhose life falls apart,The Meyerowitz Storiesis about estranged siblings reuniting when their father takes ill. In every case, Baumbach uses comedy to make the characters and the situations more relatable.White Noisetakes a different tonal approach than Baumbach’s fans are used to. A train wreck unleashing a toxic cloud is a high-concept disaster movie setup, and this time, the director uses humor to ramp up the bizarreness.
The whole thing plays like a fever dream. It’s unclear how much of it is really happening and how much is taking place in Jack’s mind.White Noiseswitches genres at the drop of a dime. When a truck careens off the road and smashes into a speeding train, the movie briefly becomes a Tony Scott action thriller. When Jack’s wife Babette wakes up in the middle of the night and lurches at him from under the covers, it briefly becomesan unnerving horror film.
IsWhite Noisean absurdist comedy? Is it a satirical drama? Is it an experimental take on a standard disaster movie? The right answer is: all of the above. With a staggering $100 million budget,White Noiseis Baumbach’s biggest, boldest, most ambitious movie to date. Unsurprisingly, it’s also his most diverse cocktail of genres and tones.
