New film by Noah Baumbach, White Noise mixes drama and comedy with criticism and satire of the modern world in an intelligent and chaotic screenplay
Like Jack Gladney’s (Adam Driver) overcrowded house, white noise it also seems to be this chaotic thing where many voices speak at the same time and nothing is intelligible or seems to make sense. It’s that cacophony that seems impossible to understand, but which reveals a series of speeches as you learn to isolate each one. And it is in this game of understanding that the real charm of the film lies.
Precisely for this reason it is impossible to indicate a single reading for the new film by Noah Baumbach. In fact, the feature film presents and develops various themes intertwined in a story that flirts with the absurd and mixes drama and humor to speak from human relationships and the fear of death to criticism of capitalism and the very behavior of society in times of crisis.
There is so much to be said and done at the same time that it is very easy to get lost. And the screenplay itself knows it and plays with this confusion by presenting us with the necessary interpretation to understand what is behind this profusion of voices: in the midst of chaos, we need to look for the minimum of normality that sustains us. It’s about turning everything unimportant into white noise that we’ve come to ignore.
Looking for an apparent normality
After the success of Story of a marriageBaumbach returns to Netflix with a very different narrative style, but which still bears some similarities to the feature film that earned him an Oscar nomination for best original screenplay in 2020. Although it trades the more banal and dramatic tone for a humor based on the absurd, white noise it still remains quite introspective and extremely personal.
Some of this is the fruit of the original work. The film that arrives on Netflix on December 30 is the adaptation of the book by Dan DeLillo, who already brings some of this more chaotic style to his writing and which is transported very well to the screens in these parts. The merit of Baumbach, therefore, lies in translating the style and updating the concept into a story that has a lot to tell us between 2022 and 2023.
Starting with the fact that it is impossible not to draw a parallel between them white noise and the post-pandemic world we find ourselves in. The story of the feature film begins with a train crash that spreads a toxic cloud in a small town, forcing its inhabitants to learn how to deal with this invisible threat that hovers around everyone.
But that doesn’t make it a disaster movie, as the basic synopsis might suggest. The heart of the screenplay, in fact, lies precisely in the relationships that orbit around the tragedy. And that includes society’s attempt to cling to a false sense of normalcy in the face of the absurd, as well as the impacts this near-death experience has on each of us.
It is for this reason that it is impossible to extract a single meaning from it white noise. From this episode that breaks with the norm, Noah Baumbach will explore several issues that are not directly related, but that dialogue with the central fact. So, we have these various speeches taking place in parallel and it is up to the viewer to isolate them to understand what is being said.
And that’s what causes such a cacophony that the film may not be for everyone. Like a kaleidoscope in which you see different things depending on how you look at it, it transitions between a heavy drama and a very particular comedy that can surprise (or disappoint) anyone who expected a more conventional script of this or that genre.
Very intelligently, it challenges this very search for normality that the screenplay presents. In the same way that Jack tries to keep calm and prove that there is nothing exceptional about this smoke wafting through the city, we too try to fit the plot into a small box and feel uneasy when we realize realize that it is neither a thing nor a thing. another one.
That’s what the name does white noise make complete sense. It is this tendency that we have to ignore all the noise around us in order to focus on a single point that makes sense to us or that gives us a (false) sense of security in the face of the chaos around us. And this is satirized within the story, which shows how we use capitalism for this – represented here by the order that a supermarket has to offer – or even cinema, which will remove the violence and brutality of an accident to transform it into a constant we can hold on to.
Experiences that transform us
Likewise, white noise it also explores how much these traumatic episodes transform us, even if this attachment to normality doesn’t always prevent us from seeing it.
It doesn’t take much effort to see how the chemical accident works as an allegory for the covid-19 pandemic we’ve been living with for so long. But the important thing for the story is what comes next, so much so that he doesn’t waste much time showing what those apocalyptic days in the city were like.
As mentioned, Jack and everyone around him are always tied to this typical routine of the American way of life. Although the protagonist’s family is anything but ordinary, the image they have of themselves is the same as any margarine commercial. And it is when they are confronted with this almost catastrophic experience that this normality begins to crumble.
The protagonist’s ideal life becomes haunted, for example, by a fear of death that has always existed, but not as latently as it is now. And that begins to move the character towards issues that have never been a problem for him up until that moment and that will shake up the normalcy he has always loved. The same can be said of existential crises, peaks of anxiety and all those reflections that both the characters and we come to share.
It’s a pretty accurate satire of something we’ve all dealt with to a greater or lesser degree, and it gives white noise a more than special taste. Despite the very particular humour, it is impossible not to recognize oneself in the teacher’s paranoia or in her growing insecurity in the face of the uncertainties of this world which has turned out to be so out of her control.
A style for a few
The beauty is that, despite having so much to tell us, white noise it’s a film not appreciated by the general public. Again, its structure does not fit what is expected of a drama or comedy and this flight from the common can cause strangeness in those looking for something more common.
But it is in this strangeness that the heart of the film lies. Adam Driver gives an incredible performance as this singular teacher who thinks he’s normal enough to be passionate. Similarly, Greta Gerwig lives Babette, a devoted wife who must face her own fears and demons as she tries to support her family in her own way.
Parallel to the couple, we have several other characters who contribute to the chaotic cacophony and who, each in their own way, help to bring order to all this mess. From the professors at the university where Jack works to the couple’s children, there are so many people with so much to say that it’s very easy to get lost – and that’s the real fun of the whole thing.
white noise it’s available exclusively on Netflix.
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Source: Terra
Camila Luna is a writer at Gossipify, where she covers the latest movies and television series. With a passion for all things entertainment, Camila brings her unique perspective to her writing and offers readers an inside look at the industry. Camila is a graduate from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) with a degree in English and is also a avid movie watcher.
