That self-awareness continues into the following scenes, as Danny Elfman\u2019s witty score apes the twinkly preciousness of John Williams\u2019 \u201880s work for Spielberg while Baumbach stages a bustling station wagon brigade, suburban parents delivering their nervous teenagers to the first day of school at the \u201cCollege On The Hill,\u201d one of the less-than-subtle winks to the Reagan era (the book was published in 1985, and Baumbach, who also adapted the screenplay, wisely keeps that setting). Later scenes also quote the Spielberg visual playbook: the good-natured hubbub of the busy family kitchen, a Close Encounters<\/em>-esque scene of the patriarch tearing open trash bags in the family garage, the distinctive Spielberg tableaux of people! Gazing! Upwards!<\/p>\n\n\n\n But that\u2019s all after the chaos begins. When we meet Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) and his wife Babbette (Greta Gerwig), they have a fairly average life, \u201cand I hope it lasts forever,\u201d she sighs. Both are teachers and intellectuals; it\u2019s each of their fourth marriages, and they\u2019re raising a patchwork brood of children new and old. But all is not well under the cozy surface: Babbette is popping pills, and Jack seems distracted, and this is all before the Airborne Toxic Event.<\/p>\n\n\n\n The sequence setting off said event is one of the best directed of Baumbach\u2019s career. Jack, you see, is the head of the College on the Hill\u2019s \u201cHitler Studies program\u201d (don\u2019t worry, it\u2019s played for laughs), while Siskind\u2019s specialty is pop icons; he\u2019s hoping to launch an Elvis Studies program, so he asks Jack to pop in on a big lecture. As they trade-off facts and theories on Hitler and Elvis, we see, outside of town, an 18-wheeler of \u201cFLAMMABLE\u201d materials headed to an intersection with a \u201cTOXIC CHEMICALS\u201d train car. Baumbach intercuts this inevitable collision with Jack pontificating on Hitler\u2019s death, and<\/em> historical footage (of both Elvis and Hitler), and the results are unexpectedly breathtaking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cShe\u2019s been different after The Event,\u201d Jack says, and Murray understands: \u201cShe suffered a collective trauma.\u201d This is Gerwig and Baumbach\u2019s first collaboration in some time (they last teamed on Mistress America, <\/em>clear back in 2014), and her work here is a reminder of her staggering gifts as an actor, which is easy to forget, since she\u2019s become such an exceptional filmmaker. But her turn as Babbette manages a perfect balance of real pain and dark humor, and when she finally makes her big confession to Jack, and despairs, \u201cYou cherish your wife who tells you everything, and I am trying my best<\/em>,\u201d it hones in on a genuinely palpable and relatable sense of frustration and hopelessness. Driver matches her well, in that scene and throughout the picture; there\u2019s something so raw and wounded about where they end up, and the sense we nevertheless have that they\u2019ll get through all of this. <\/p>\n\n\n\n White Noise<\/em> doesn\u2019t feel quite like any of Baumbach\u2019s previous work, and as such, it\u2019s also his most stylishly directed; one gets the sense that since he is not the primary author, he was able to give more attention to the kind of directorial flourishes that might have felt like distractions before. The tone is a bit more scattered than usual (though, again, that\u2019s in the source material), running the gamut from borderline slapstick (the inspired chaos of a camp evacuation is busy and wired, like a vintage John Landis sequence), to a moody, neo-noir feel by the climax. And it comes to an honest-to-goodness perfect conclusion, with a closing sequence that feels like a deleted scene from David Byrne\u2019s True Stories<\/em>. This, needless to say, is the highest of compliments.\u00a0 “White Noise” is now playing in limited release. It streams on Netflix on December 30<\/a>. <\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/12\/white-noise2-scaled-1024x512.jpg\")
<\/figure>\n\n\n\n
The Hitler material is one of the ways in which this nearly forty-year old source material has proven unexpectedly timely; Jack\u2019s theories on Hitler\u2019s appeal, and how people are drawn to charismatic figures when they\u2019re scared, don\u2019t exactly require a flow chart, particularly as he describes the participatory nature of his hate rallies (\u201cThey were there to be a crowd\u201d). And the Airborne Toxic Event is similarly relevant, particularly early on, as Jack attempts to be optimistic and reassuring to his family (\u201cNothing going to happen!\u201d he insists, as many of us did in early 2020) in the face of not only unsubstantiated rumors but constantly shifting (and reversing) information from authorities. (\u201cWe\u2019re quarantined! Like lepers in medieval times!\u201d bellows Bill Camp, ranting and raving beautifully in a too-brief appearance.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n![\"\"\/](\"https:\/\/crookedmarquee.com\/stage8\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/crookedc-01.svg\")
<\/p>\n\n\n\nA<\/strong><\/h1>\n\n\n\n