I like chunks of it, but I don’t think I particularly like the whole. It’s a movie about anxiety and the fear of death, but I never really get that feeling I do with something like Uncut Gems or A Serious Man. Adam Driver’s presentation about Hitler and his argument in the bedroom with Gerwig were great, though.
Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way. I felt like the beginning of the film was really weak. Kinda took a while to kick in, and really understand what the film was trying to do. But especially towards the middle, the film is incredibly hilarious. But then kinda goes back into being sorta meh at the end, with admittedly a memorable ending with the nuns and the grocery dance number.
This is pretty easily my least favorite Baumbach film. Didn’t have the same weight that Squid n’ the Whale and Marriage Story had. But, still not my least favorite movie of this year so, enjoyed it!
If that’s the scale we’re on, then definitely, I’ve seen much much much worse movies this year. But considering how much I adored Marriage Story, it was a bit of a disappointment. I’d put it about on par with Margot at the Wedding (although they are very different films).
I haven’t seen it! Though the comparison makes me feel like I don’t…100% actually wanna see that film, because I dunno if I want something else quite like this if I’m being completely honest. But I agree, for the Baumbach standard it is a bit of a disappointment. But, still enjoyable enough that I could see myself recommending it to someone who wants a very certain vibe…or maybe interested isn’t the exploration of coping with the idea of dying. Idk.
Hm. I already planned on watching it but that does seem like a big mistake. But it could be something that's hard to translate into a visual medium. Who knows
I'd like to see more interesting directors tackle unadaptable postmodern novels. Pumped for the Netflix miniseries for Infinite Jest that's probably coming soon.
My god, could you imagine. Miniseries, lol. Would have to be a 10-year-long interactive series a la banderstnatch for the footnotes and the footnotes’ footnotes along with built-in movies to depict all the interlace cartridges.
Anybody who ever actually got through the maze of it all sh/would win an award or something.
They should start working on it now to be done before subsidized time starts.
Personally I would fly to LA in order to defecate on the steps of Netflix’s corporate offices (and the homes of others involved) if IJ got turned into a miniseries. A very long feature film might be a different conversation, though I still wouldn’t like that. White Noise is different — smaller, a little more cinematic in parts. But some of these novels I think we should leave alone simply because a lot of postmodern work depends on the medium of literary fiction in order to carry out a message. Agree that some of the postmodern canon could be adapted well though
The whole point of the book, though, is that there’s no good way to implement the endnotes period. They’re supposed to be arduous, require effort on part of the reader. The point of the book is the fact that TV asks too little of us and lets us be passive. An adaptation would contradict the book on every fundamental level
Didn’t change anything imo. It even reinforces it. The whole modern idea of binging and bottomless content is what infinite jest addresses.
That said, DFW enjoyed film and pop culture and would probably have enjoyed parts of the prestige tv era
started reading the book after enjoying a lot of the movie. Am fucking loving the book, but the more I read, the more I feel like this kind of material is kind of weird for Baumbach. I think ill rewatch the film, once I'm done, to form some new and informed thoughts.
I read the book a couple of years ago when I got really into "serious reading" lol...I was looking for ways to expand my palate past Stephen King and graphic novels so I would look at lists of "greatest books ever" and would run through them which lead to several finds including this! I agree there're a few moments that intensely clash with Baumbach's style that I noted myself but I appreciate that he didn't fuck with the dialogue like many other directors would have. I think people who said this was unadaptable were somewhat right but I think what we got was about as good as it was gonna get
It took me awhile to get into it (the tone is quite different from Baumbach's previous movies). But once I got what it was trying to achieve, I liked it more. I hadn't read the book or watched the trailers so had zero idea what the movie was about. I like this idea of intellectualism's inability to deal with the reality and real fear of death. I think I'll like it more on rewatch.
Yeah it definitely feels more wes anderson in style than baumbach’s previous movies. It only really “felt” like baumbach because there’s a theatrical/stagey tone to it, plus the anxiety.
Wes helped Noah break into larger-budget filmmaking with Squid and the Whale. They have also been writing partners on a few projects, so many Wes Anderson movies are also Noah Baumbach movies.
I think Baumbach just wrote or co-wrote Fantastic Mr Fox and The Life Aquatic
Owen Wilson wrote or co-wrote Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and Royal Tenenbaums
Jason Schwartzman had story credits on French Dispatch, Isle of Dogs, and The Darjeeling Limited along with Roman Coppola, who also has story credit on Moonrise Kingdom.
lots of wes anderson, & for that matter lots of paul thos. anderson \*, has a sort of don delillo vibe.
winsome dread & paranoia with a side of irony.
\*) paul thos. anderson did *inherent vice*, based on a pynchon novel... & pynchon was doing the winsome dread & paranoia yrs before delillo...tho each has there own take.
Brilliant. I love when something random you remember, that a majority of people wouldn’t understand or appreciate, finally gets to be shared with a community who appreciates it! Thanks.
those andersons, whether paul thos. or wes (or their late uk forbearing forebear lindsay), have tended to be very literary..
when not doing an adaptation of a novel by thos. pynchon, roald dahl, delillo, or upton sinclair, they often weave a literary pastiché/hommage
into their work (esp. wes, who riffs on j. d. salinger (& other new yorker writers), stefan zweig, f. scott fitzgerald, & dime-store noir novels,
wes anderson uses lots of theatrical/stagey touches, esp. figurative proscenium arches, frames within frames, sometimes frames within frames within frames, not only visually, but in his nesting of narrative... but what makes wes anderson interesting is that even his stagey theatricality is very cinematic, calling to mind renoir or ozu & how they take tricks of the stage & make them cinematic.
(& another wes anderson influence that is hardly ever mentioned is fritz lang's silent films, esp. his *mabuse* series & *spione*. there is a visual exuberance that goes beyond the design & look, an overall tone that's antic as fuck.
One observation: with a director of Baumbach’s stature (or any of his contemporaries) working a story with a complete toolset at his disposal, even a short, relatively simple scene depicting a nightmare becomes masterclass in cinematic horror. IMO it was worth watching just for those scenes alone.
I think he enjoys wrestling with the real demons of human life more. Margot at the Wedding has all kinds of horror and misery in it without having to be a horror film.
That’s not how literally works but ok, there’s definitely some things they could do. Maybe they’re on a plane or in the airport, a bus even. Maybe they can watch it while they fuck your mom to actually keep themselves entertained. Plenty of options really.
2 things
1. My initial comment to op was more sarcastic. God forbid I don’t put /s at the end. Go read it again with some inflection.
2. Then YOU decide to jump in all high and mighty, unnecessarily btw, and act all righteous.
Also, you’re not denying it’s the screen name you made at 13 so….
I really liked it. Especially the first like hour and 45 minutes. I did feel the runtime a little bit, but I don't agree with the negative reviews generally. Especially given that white noise has always been said to be pretty unadaptable
It wasn't good. The sound design seemed to be alman-esque but it was jumbled and not effective. The editing was bad too. Baumbach has become so insincere and pretentious.
Nice to see a little diversity in casting, though.
Here come the down votes.
When you say “jumbled and not effective” what do you mean? I don’t believe you were intended to follow all of the side conversations going on. That literally was white noise.
It’s not a great movie. A lot of the things that make the book funny and sardonic are lost to the screen. It’s not entirely his fault as it is quite a hard book to adapt because of tone and time of writing. I was also not a fan of how he changed bits of the story just to include Greta in more scenes. Adam Driver carries the movie Imo
This. I loved the book. I worried that it wouldn’t translate to film easily, but I didn’t think the Virgin Suicides would either, and that movie was a fairly faithful adaptation while totally capturing the mood of the source material.
Baumbach didn’t seem like the right person to do this film, but I wanted to be hopeful because I love Greta Gerwig. I totally agree that the humor in the text did not translate well. I thought that Gerwig and Driver were over the top in their performance—at least for how I read JAK and Babette (also that wasn’t how I imagined Babette’s “important” hair 🤷🏼♀️). I thought the kids’ performances seems spot on to the source material.
I think they left out too much to allow the themes and tone of the novel to come through. They could have made such a big cut work if they treated the parts they chose to include with more care.
Also the parts that they added didn’t contribute to the film in a meaningful way.
I wouldn’t have minded the barn scene or Murray’s weird speech about heat and cities to be included. (I noticed there was a small allusion to heat elsewhere, but maybe I’m wrong. It’s possible I missed these things as I felt like they just crammed a lot in without much explanation or set up).
I also liked the ending of the book about the toxic sunsets or w/e.
As I was watching it, I wondered how anyone who hadn’t read the book could really follow what was going on. If it could be followed, it seems like the finished product only does a tiny amount of justice to the source material.
Edit: autocorrect
I liked it. I wish I hadn’t watched the trailer since most of it focused on the evacuation part of the movie and that was such a small part of the film, so my expectation going in was different from what the movie actually was.
But it was enjoyable. Nice to see Gerwig acting again.
I saw it in theaters and thought it was just okay. I'm gonna rewatch it now that it's streaming and I hope to get more out of it. It had a lot of great moments, but I don't think everything really came together for me.
I didn’t like it on the whole. I thought the drastic shifts in tonality were too jarring, and felt unsettled without any real payoff. There were powerful moments, and Adam Driver was good (as always). The outro dance number / credits was laughably insufferable and prolonged.
Having seen that ending clip online, apart of me appreciates the ballsiness of it? It definitely got me intrigued to watch it. Plus, we got new LCD Soundsystem music out of it so that’s sick!
ballsy???
the psuedo intellectual dialogue, the unfortunate staging and messyness of it all.
it was very disappointing and when a fun time sing along dance number came on at the end i had realised the film was over and gladly walked out of the theater.
i havent thought about this movie at all since seeing it, and i am so glad.
I really enjoyed it. I teach this novel quite often and its one of those that people have talked about adapting for years but no one could quite get right. The David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest js another postmodern novel that many have tried to adapt but no studio would touch. Kudos to them for making a decent film!
Loved it. I love the book, Don DeLillo's writing style, and postmodernism in general, so this was a fairly sure thing for me.
I think a lot of people are struggling with a movie that is essentially about nothing because nothing is the point. I think you also need some tolerance for philosophical pontificating to enjoy it.
It will definitely help. This is a pretty good adaptation of a novel that would be very hard to adapt. It’s also just a fantastic book from one of the great writers of our times.
I loved it too, and am somewhat baffled by all the lukewarm reactions. This is a million times better than “Nope.” I’ve seen people say that the family/kids dialog has “no point” but most of it was funny, and the key to almost everything is in the title. The white noise is the noise we surround ourselves with as a distraction from thoughts about death. And anyone who has young children as I do knows full well that they are constantly talking. Asking random questions at inappropriate times, barking out facts and figures, etc.
I haven’t read the novel but I liked the movie! I thought there were a lot of things that could have been metaphorical, and maybe there could have been a relation to consumerism/capitalism? But I’m not sure about that.
***spoiler alert, please do not read beyond this point if you haven’t seen the film***
I appreciate the dialogues, loved the set design, the added dancing in the end, and the mysterious character selling “Dylar”. I wish he had a more elaborate back story! Do they tell his background in the book?
as a fan of the novel, i was really disappointed that they cut two small scenes that seemed to me to be extremely thematically important and like, the first things i think of when i think of “white noise”
the “most photographed barn in america” bit and the bit when one of his kids whispers “toyota celica” in their sleep
otherwise, it was decent!
I am not normally a kind of guy to go full on "1/10, boo, if you like this you're pretending, worst film of my life" but I sincerely did feel, almost as soon as this ended, that it was maybe the most I have disliked a film, ever.
I have seen films that were not very entertaining. I have seen films that were grating. I have seen films that were a bit muddled and incoherent. But I generally still try and focus on what I like about a film.
But I can't think of many films that I found boring, irritating, and muddled all at the time. There was no angle, no way I could find of watching it that brought me any relief.
I loved it. Obviously it's a bit hard to follow at times, but being a fan of the novel I don't think there was any other way to adapt it to a film.
It also made me realize I have a crush on Greta Gerwig.
Seeing a lot of just outright bad media literacy in this thread. The movie isn't perfect, but so many of the critques here are bad faith and don't really engage with the movie.
My main issues are that it's overlong and some of the editing (especially the climax) are borderline pretentious.
For a supposedly unfilmable novel though, Baumbach did an incredible job that was filled with strong performances and kept faithfully to the tone of the novel.
This movie definitely isn't for everyone (i watched it with my parents who both fell alseep), and the release and promotion didn't help. I can't see White Noise having the same level of popularity as Marriage Story, but it felt like that's what it was marketed as. I think Netflix shot it in the foot by not explicitly stating it's more artsy than anything. The preview video i saw when I hovered over it on Netflix was the comic car chase seen which is really not represenative of the movie.
If you're willing to engage with White Noise on its own terms, it's pretty great
I think I agree with most of what has been said here already. I'll add that I was particularly excited for it because of what I've seen from Baumbach previously ("Noah and the Whale", "Francis Ha", "Marriage Story") and him getting a big budget to do something truly wild.
The themes represented in the film were great, in my opinion. Truly a movie about the pitfalls of consumerism/capitalism at its core. They were represented by Driver's bumbling attitude towards anything juxtaposed with his family's hyperbolic reactions to everything.
There's also tons of humor in "White Noise" that I honestly didn't expect, but it was welcome and almost necessary for how dense the movie is. I'm not sure if I'm ready to watch it again because of how exhausting it was, but maybe with a crowd it'd be a fun watch and discussion.
Felt like watching Triangle of Sadness again, it drags halfway through the runtime after the "fun parts" over. I don't hate it but it's hard recommend.
Ew nothing like Triangle of Sadness at all??! This was a wanna be PTA film that completely fails. Triangle of Sadness is hilarious, and well made. How are they even similar?
I read the novel about a year ago and appreciate how faithful it is to the source, including the third act here that kind of slows down the film as it sputters to the end while in the novel it really works because it makes the post-apocalypse normalcy of forever Americana feel like a post-death bliss. Life goes on but things will never be normal ever again
The novel’s end is a lot darker: he shoots Mr. Grey, saves him and returns home to a kind of alienation from his family. Here he is joined by his wife after he kills his shadow and it’s a funnier more happy version of the ending. I thought the filmmaking and production design of the film were superb, and it translated the language of the novel very successfully. It’s not perfect but I didn’t expect it to work as well as it did.
I was really excited to see it because I loved the book, but I was kind of disappointed. Felt a bit boring compared to the kind of intense vibe of the book. Could have been more visually psychological I think. I just don’t think DeLillo’s writing translates well to screen!
It glossed over so many of my favorite parts of the book and painted over an entire character I like but overall was a pretty good adaptation of a very tough book to adapt! I wonder how anyone who hasn’t read it got anything out of it though.
It’s slow but some really good and subtle humor. I have to say, a kid of the 89’s, the detail to product packaging is impeccable. All the packages look as I remember them.
My alternate title is "robots tell you the perspective they represent about the anxieties of accepting death." Go for it if that's what you're into, I thought it was pretty easily the weakest Noah Baumbach movie I've seen.
Hated it. Started off really well then became a bloviating, drawn out, wannabe PTA x WA art house flick with no real direction.
Way too dialogue heavy, which made runtime was especially hard to get through.
It was entertaining. The visuals, costumes, sets were fun to look at. I liked the dialogue. Good acting by most of the actors. Greta’s character and acting was pretty average though. Good themes, and I enjoyed some of the academia scenes.
I do think other movies have done a better job of portraying anxiety as has been discussed already
I like that Baumbach did something different. All his movies have a very similar tone/themes and this was definitely a departure which I appreciate.
It’s not mind blowing but it is worth a 2hr watch, especially considering how much garbage Neatflix puts out
It's a train wreck! The book's absurdist dialogue sounded painfully stiff and unnatural coming out of the horribly miscast actors' mouths. (Driver and Gerwig are way too young for the roles and not up to the challenge.) The satire felt dated and heavy handed, with hardly any of the jokes hitting the mark, and the plot was an overstuffed mess. The best part was the middle section with the fallout and panic from the chemical spill, but then the story veered down a ludicrous side path that didn't add up to much.
I love Noah Baumbach but this was a total misfire for me. At least the ending credits were fun!
Funny you should ask. I've been trying to recast the movie in my head, but it's hard to think of actors who could pull off that dialogue. Jeff Goldman could probably do it but he's too old now. Maybe Robert Downing Jr. or Adrien Brody? Wynona Ryder as the wife? I don't know! I'm stumped.
I have to agree with how the dialogue came out - often the tone was wrong, pacing and it could have gone down a Before Midnight alley took a wrong turn.
I actually thought Driver was best cast, he looked pure 80s middle age middle income dad. His wife I felt was a miscast. Her tone really didn’t sit well, it would go from monotones to these fake stutters (during the crying scene) - the delivery was really unnatural - even though I knew they were trying to stick with the original context of the novel.
I felt like maybe Bauchach was also a little inspired by play movie movies like The Cook, The Thief….but it just felt like a play at times made in first semester college.
The ending would have been cool in a complete different movie.
Also the middle kid asking those questions over and over in situation where any kid would be reacting with fear was so ridiculous.
I get the “white noise” and dysfunctional family but it wasn’t executed correctly. Not enough speaking over each other. Too many “fact” moments. Just really unnatural even for movies.
Loved driver two door scene
Is the satire dated, though? I mean, death and our fear of it, and the mitigation of that fear through consumerism—these are perennial topics. If anything the culture we live in right now is even more death-obsessed.
Driver and Gerwig are both turning 40 this year. How are they too young to have teenage children and been through a few divorces? People marry and have children in their late teens and early 20s still to this day.
He’s 50 in the book. I just don’t find Driver believable as a 50 year old college professor who’s been married 7 times and has a bunch of kids. Gerwig isn’t believable as a parent either, she looks and talks like a twenty-something.
But it’s not just their age that’s the problem. Neither of them have the acting chops to pull off DeLillo’s stylized dialogue. They sounded so stilted to me, like they were reading from cue cards. I felt like I was watching a high school play with teenagers pretending to be adults. For me, the movie never struck the right tone.
Hated it. The constant rapid fire conversation back and forth gave me no time to take a breath and digest what I was taking in. I know DeLillo's writing is often focused on nothing, but these characters were overly neurotic about trivial matters. Had to turn it off after 45 minutes.
Keep down voting for an opinion. OK, reddit...
It's almost as if the rapid fire conversation was a sort of white noise...
Really though all the reasons you listed for not liking the movie was thematically the point
I liked it, especially since Driver is my favorite actor, and I love Gerwig and Baumbach. My mind wandered a bit during the second act, and I didn’t love the jarring transition between the second and third act. However, there is a lot to like here so for me the flaws were easy to overlook. Incredible production design, super colorful. Would love to have it in the collection. Seems possible since the company has a great relationship with noah.
Really liked parts, thought some of it was hilarious, particularly the beginning. The talk about hitler and Elvis going on at the same time was absolutely cracking me up. As was the ever changing name for the black cloud.
Once it actually turned into a “disaster” movie and all the ending parts I was kind of out though. Glad I watched it but don’t think it’s great. I like it less the more I think about it tbh, has a lot of very interesting ideas but I don’t think it comes together particularly well.
A very good movie. But without knowing anything about the movie or the book you could tell is an adaptation and the very similar cinematography with the Squid...the character of the smart boy and the college clique gave it away. So not original, but consistent. A professional at work.
Never read the book, but I really loved it. Super strange but very interesting. The lecture scene with Driver and Cheadle is one of the best of the year.
Loved this movie. It was drowning in subtext and satire, which appeals to me. I know the dialogue was unnatural, but I felt it fit the tone of the movie. This film was not meant to be naturalistic. It wasn’t meant to be a National Lampoon movie (despite station wagon off-road driving). It wasn’t meant to be a disaster movie (despite a man-made disaster). Nor was it meant to be a family drama (despite pairing Driver and Baumbach reprising their partnership from Marriage Story.
This was about the cocoon of unreality we create around ourselves to avoid dealing with reality. We do this by surrounding ourselves with literal and figurative fluff. When viewed objectively, we all look schizophrenic.
I think the above dynamic was delivered in the performances of Driver and Gerwig, who were both too immersed in their own bullshit to be aware of anyone else.
I loved the set design and how it supported the theme. The music was reminiscent of John Carpenter up until the credits. And even then, the LCD Soundsystem number blended right in. This may be starting to be over-done in 80’s period pieces (Stranger Things), but I honestly can’t get enough. In that same vein, this film is chock full of well worn tropes which are not relevant to the story, but fit the theme. We draw comfort from these because they are familiar, just like the cereal aisle.
Post-modernism had not come to mind for me before reading the comments here, but I suppose that is exactly what this movie is in presentation and meaning.
This reminded me of a Jarmusch film, but in living color(tm).
It's a perfect adaptation of the novel. Both include some interesting ideas, exchanges, maneuvers, etc but neither are really on the whole very good. Delillo's book is fine but not a great novel. Baumbach's movie is fine but not a great film. It is interesting to see how he burns Netflix money to make something totally uninterested in confirming to audience expectations. And the deep De Palma pastiche at the motel is the best part.
Personally I don't really see the issue with people wanting to discuss recent films on a sub full of film lovers - especially a film like Banshees that seems highly likely to enter the collection at some point. It's easy enough to just ignore or hide posts about non-Criterion films if you don't want to see them.
Sure. But why not wait and discuss it here when and if that happens? It's not like there aren't plenty of more suitable subreddits to discuss it like /r/TrueFilm
This is a discussion forum, so why shouldn’t people discuss those films? Obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere, but it’s not like people are making posts about Jurassic World: Dominion ffs. Baumbach already has 4 films in the collection and, with the way Criterion releases Netflix films, this could very well come out in the next 5 years. It’s not off-topic to be asking what the community thought about the film.
over a thousand blu-rays in the Criterion Collections. Thousands more on the Criterion Channel. Yet it's way more popular here to discuss non-Criterion films and fantasize over films that should be in the collection.
It was better than I thought but still kind of hit or miss. I thought the supermarket scenes really caught what DeLillo was getting at, and not just the final scene. I’m impressed Baumbach got that big of a budget to make this.
I love Noah Baumbach, and Adam Driver. I love Gerwig as a director but less acting.
This movie is just..not good. Towards the bottom of the list for 2022 for me. Tonally all over the place, story makes jumps with no payoff, and the dialogue is awful too. There’s plenty of editing issues, cringy CGI, and just not a lot of redeeming qualities. Driver is as good as material allows. Cheadle shines nicely. Some nice cinematography but that’s about where the compliments end. I know it’s supposed to be postmodern but that doesn’t have to mean “bad”
I’m all about it, the crying bedroom scene was too long which makes the key change hard to adjust to but the whole thing is wild and I love the whole notion of a sea of information that doesn’t mean anything but also has key details and how do you tune yourself to the right frequency to hear what you need to hear.
It was very true to the novel; though I am not sure the novel should have been made into a film. There are a few great scenes in the movie, but overall I didn't find it to be an impactful film and I would think those who haven't read the book may find the dialogue and sequencing to be a bit strange. Huge fan of Baumbauch, Driver, and Gerwig, but this one could have been left on the page.
I think the movie was quite ambitious. It was certainly a bit different from what we have come to expect from Baumbach. But there were, according to me instances where Baumbach's signature style could be visible.
The movie certainly has flaws, but I think on the while it gets balanced. I mean it was supposed to be an absurdist movie. So on that regard the people acting in a way that normally isn't how they are supposed to act is kind of an important thing. That being said, certain elements of the movie were a bit too absurdist and kind of made it strenuous to overlook them. The dialogue is, as we have come to expect from Baumbach, natural at the surface level, but has thematic undertones embedded in it. Still the dialogue felt awkward and absurd at some points. I guess that was how it was supposed to be given the absurdist tone.
On the whole I would say I liked the movie, but it certainly isn't Baumbach's best work.
It was a good, 6.5 out of 10 for me. Technically speaking, it's top notch. Shooting, editing, all that is great. I just could not connect to most of the characters, and I wish the imagery of the cloud representing looking death and paranoia was a bit more constant throughout the film. Frankly, I feel like one could cut the whole cloud and evacuation, make J.A.K.'s approaching death something else like cancer linked to things like they discuss in the grocery store, and the movie would be the same, if not more cohesive.
I watched 20 minutes then fell asleep. I’ll finish it eventually, but it just felt like another quirky Baumbach film.
Take my opinion with a grain of salt though. I’ve never been a fan of Baumbach and mainly watch his new movies because they get a lot of critical acclaim.
hated the dialogue/writing personally. found greta's performance to be bad. i prefer her behind the camera. don cheadle and the son were the best part imo
I actually really loved it. Has its issues no doubt but its one of those movies that I just dug. First two acts are definitely stronger than the final act but I didn’t hate it like some people did.
Terrible movie that tries very hard and fails to be a PTA like film. I’m confused by all the people saying they enjoyed it. People saying they like this is a case of the emperor wearing no clothes.
love it !! never been huge on Baumbach as a director but i feel like he really stepped up here, lots of incredible looking shots and sequences, along with a ton of great production design work. Also generally just like a very good adaptation of the novel too.
Also just love that he basically scammed Netflix out of millions of dollars on a movie that was 100% never gonna be a hit about a guy who is a professor in Hitler Studies. The LCD Soundsystem ending credits probably cost more than entire movies he’s worked on. it whips
I like chunks of it, but I don’t think I particularly like the whole. It’s a movie about anxiety and the fear of death, but I never really get that feeling I do with something like Uncut Gems or A Serious Man. Adam Driver’s presentation about Hitler and his argument in the bedroom with Gerwig were great, though.
Yeah, I pretty much feel the same way. I felt like the beginning of the film was really weak. Kinda took a while to kick in, and really understand what the film was trying to do. But especially towards the middle, the film is incredibly hilarious. But then kinda goes back into being sorta meh at the end, with admittedly a memorable ending with the nuns and the grocery dance number. This is pretty easily my least favorite Baumbach film. Didn’t have the same weight that Squid n’ the Whale and Marriage Story had. But, still not my least favorite movie of this year so, enjoyed it!
If that’s the scale we’re on, then definitely, I’ve seen much much much worse movies this year. But considering how much I adored Marriage Story, it was a bit of a disappointment. I’d put it about on par with Margot at the Wedding (although they are very different films).
I haven’t seen it! Though the comparison makes me feel like I don’t…100% actually wanna see that film, because I dunno if I want something else quite like this if I’m being completely honest. But I agree, for the Baumbach standard it is a bit of a disappointment. But, still enjoyable enough that I could see myself recommending it to someone who wants a very certain vibe…or maybe interested isn’t the exploration of coping with the idea of dying. Idk.
Have you read the book? It's not a comfortable read, with all the focus on death anxiety
I have not, but that’s what I mean. This movie didn’t make me uncomfortable which seems like somewhat of a mistake in tone.
Hm. I already planned on watching it but that does seem like a big mistake. But it could be something that's hard to translate into a visual medium. Who knows
It’s actually a very uncomfortable and hectic movie
That’s the vibe I was getting from it, the aesthetic was kinda a turn off too at first.
I'd like to see more interesting directors tackle unadaptable postmodern novels. Pumped for the Netflix miniseries for Infinite Jest that's probably coming soon.
Netflix literally is the titular Infinite Jest.
"the Entertainment"
My god, could you imagine. Miniseries, lol. Would have to be a 10-year-long interactive series a la banderstnatch for the footnotes and the footnotes’ footnotes along with built-in movies to depict all the interlace cartridges. Anybody who ever actually got through the maze of it all sh/would win an award or something. They should start working on it now to be done before subsidized time starts.
Personally I would fly to LA in order to defecate on the steps of Netflix’s corporate offices (and the homes of others involved) if IJ got turned into a miniseries. A very long feature film might be a different conversation, though I still wouldn’t like that. White Noise is different — smaller, a little more cinematic in parts. But some of these novels I think we should leave alone simply because a lot of postmodern work depends on the medium of literary fiction in order to carry out a message. Agree that some of the postmodern canon could be adapted well though
A miniseries would probably be the best way to implement the endnotes.
The whole point of the book, though, is that there’s no good way to implement the endnotes period. They’re supposed to be arduous, require effort on part of the reader. The point of the book is the fact that TV asks too little of us and lets us be passive. An adaptation would contradict the book on every fundamental level
True, but the landscape of TV has shifted greatly since its publication.
But the medium has remained the same. And the shift in the landscape has only made it easier to fall into an addictive relationship with entertainment
Nah they have a point, TV nowadays is virtually unrecognizable from TV of the past.
Didn’t change anything imo. It even reinforces it. The whole modern idea of binging and bottomless content is what infinite jest addresses. That said, DFW enjoyed film and pop culture and would probably have enjoyed parts of the prestige tv era
Sounds appropriate
Not quite a movie but there is at least a music video for the Decemberists featuring a scene from Infinite Jest if anyone hasn't seen it
Nothing like a sporting game of Eschaton
incredibly strange. compels me though.
Love the novel and I appreciate how accurate it was to the source material without hurting the quality
started reading the book after enjoying a lot of the movie. Am fucking loving the book, but the more I read, the more I feel like this kind of material is kind of weird for Baumbach. I think ill rewatch the film, once I'm done, to form some new and informed thoughts.
I read the book a couple of years ago when I got really into "serious reading" lol...I was looking for ways to expand my palate past Stephen King and graphic novels so I would look at lists of "greatest books ever" and would run through them which lead to several finds including this! I agree there're a few moments that intensely clash with Baumbach's style that I noted myself but I appreciate that he didn't fuck with the dialogue like many other directors would have. I think people who said this was unadaptable were somewhat right but I think what we got was about as good as it was gonna get
It took me awhile to get into it (the tone is quite different from Baumbach's previous movies). But once I got what it was trying to achieve, I liked it more. I hadn't read the book or watched the trailers so had zero idea what the movie was about. I like this idea of intellectualism's inability to deal with the reality and real fear of death. I think I'll like it more on rewatch.
I remember reading online that it had an almost Wes Andersony vibe to it. Is that accurate?
Yeah it definitely feels more wes anderson in style than baumbach’s previous movies. It only really “felt” like baumbach because there’s a theatrical/stagey tone to it, plus the anxiety.
Wes helped Noah break into larger-budget filmmaking with Squid and the Whale. They have also been writing partners on a few projects, so many Wes Anderson movies are also Noah Baumbach movies.
I think Baumbach just wrote or co-wrote Fantastic Mr Fox and The Life Aquatic Owen Wilson wrote or co-wrote Bottle Rocket, Rushmore, and Royal Tenenbaums Jason Schwartzman had story credits on French Dispatch, Isle of Dogs, and The Darjeeling Limited along with Roman Coppola, who also has story credit on Moonrise Kingdom.
lots of wes anderson, & for that matter lots of paul thos. anderson \*, has a sort of don delillo vibe. winsome dread & paranoia with a side of irony. \*) paul thos. anderson did *inherent vice*, based on a pynchon novel... & pynchon was doing the winsome dread & paranoia yrs before delillo...tho each has there own take.
Fun fact: Paul Thomas Anderson had David Foster Wallace as a literature teacher in college and he did a report for him on White Noise.
Brilliant. I love when something random you remember, that a majority of people wouldn’t understand or appreciate, finally gets to be shared with a community who appreciates it! Thanks.
those andersons, whether paul thos. or wes (or their late uk forbearing forebear lindsay), have tended to be very literary.. when not doing an adaptation of a novel by thos. pynchon, roald dahl, delillo, or upton sinclair, they often weave a literary pastiché/hommage into their work (esp. wes, who riffs on j. d. salinger (& other new yorker writers), stefan zweig, f. scott fitzgerald, & dime-store noir novels,
& all of them, wes & paul thos., are very influenced by early godard & truffaut... but who isn't? (no, please don't answer that...)
wes anderson uses lots of theatrical/stagey touches, esp. figurative proscenium arches, frames within frames, sometimes frames within frames within frames, not only visually, but in his nesting of narrative... but what makes wes anderson interesting is that even his stagey theatricality is very cinematic, calling to mind renoir or ozu & how they take tricks of the stage & make them cinematic. (& another wes anderson influence that is hardly ever mentioned is fritz lang's silent films, esp. his *mabuse* series & *spione*. there is a visual exuberance that goes beyond the design & look, an overall tone that's antic as fuck.
It bridged some of the pop-culture/death anxiety stuff together with what felt like homages to Steven Spielberg
What are your thoughts?
One observation: with a director of Baumbach’s stature (or any of his contemporaries) working a story with a complete toolset at his disposal, even a short, relatively simple scene depicting a nightmare becomes masterclass in cinematic horror. IMO it was worth watching just for those scenes alone.
A few time while watching it, I thought that Baumbach should try his hand with a horror movie. I think he’d be pretty good at it.
I think he enjoys wrestling with the real demons of human life more. Margot at the Wedding has all kinds of horror and misery in it without having to be a horror film.
I haven’t gotten around to seeing it yet, so I’m curious to see what other people think.
Why are you getting down voted for this??
I was asking the same question tbh
Well you could’ve watched it in the time you had since posting this
Unless they’re doing literally anything?
That’s not how literally works but ok, there’s definitely some things they could do. Maybe they’re on a plane or in the airport, a bus even. Maybe they can watch it while they fuck your mom to actually keep themselves entertained. Plenty of options really.
Oh you’re 13, now I get it
Coming from u/IBangYoDaddy it kinda loses any punch that pathetic attempt at a burn had in the first place. Is that the screen name you made at 13?
Big difference when I’m not being an unnecessary asshole to random people on the internet.
2 things 1. My initial comment to op was more sarcastic. God forbid I don’t put /s at the end. Go read it again with some inflection. 2. Then YOU decide to jump in all high and mighty, unnecessarily btw, and act all righteous. Also, you’re not denying it’s the screen name you made at 13 so….
I really liked it. Especially the first like hour and 45 minutes. I did feel the runtime a little bit, but I don't agree with the negative reviews generally. Especially given that white noise has always been said to be pretty unadaptable
i didn’t like it :/ i was veeeery hyped to see that tho, i love Baumbach
It wasn't good. The sound design seemed to be alman-esque but it was jumbled and not effective. The editing was bad too. Baumbach has become so insincere and pretentious. Nice to see a little diversity in casting, though. Here come the down votes.
When you say “jumbled and not effective” what do you mean? I don’t believe you were intended to follow all of the side conversations going on. That literally was white noise.
i totally agree, but i feel the 'diversity' was not very diverse at all. also, very funny you predict the downvotes
He's probably getting downvoted mostly for predicting downvotes.
As if your opinion matters?
literally yes? op asked for everyone's thoughts and they are a part of everyone? wtf is the point of this comment
I can’t argue with that!
It’s not a great movie. A lot of the things that make the book funny and sardonic are lost to the screen. It’s not entirely his fault as it is quite a hard book to adapt because of tone and time of writing. I was also not a fan of how he changed bits of the story just to include Greta in more scenes. Adam Driver carries the movie Imo
This. I loved the book. I worried that it wouldn’t translate to film easily, but I didn’t think the Virgin Suicides would either, and that movie was a fairly faithful adaptation while totally capturing the mood of the source material. Baumbach didn’t seem like the right person to do this film, but I wanted to be hopeful because I love Greta Gerwig. I totally agree that the humor in the text did not translate well. I thought that Gerwig and Driver were over the top in their performance—at least for how I read JAK and Babette (also that wasn’t how I imagined Babette’s “important” hair 🤷🏼♀️). I thought the kids’ performances seems spot on to the source material. I think they left out too much to allow the themes and tone of the novel to come through. They could have made such a big cut work if they treated the parts they chose to include with more care. Also the parts that they added didn’t contribute to the film in a meaningful way. I wouldn’t have minded the barn scene or Murray’s weird speech about heat and cities to be included. (I noticed there was a small allusion to heat elsewhere, but maybe I’m wrong. It’s possible I missed these things as I felt like they just crammed a lot in without much explanation or set up). I also liked the ending of the book about the toxic sunsets or w/e. As I was watching it, I wondered how anyone who hadn’t read the book could really follow what was going on. If it could be followed, it seems like the finished product only does a tiny amount of justice to the source material. Edit: autocorrect
Completely agree with you. I read the book and felt the length of the movie, I wonder how people who haven’t must have felt 🙈
I liked it. I wish I hadn’t watched the trailer since most of it focused on the evacuation part of the movie and that was such a small part of the film, so my expectation going in was different from what the movie actually was. But it was enjoyable. Nice to see Gerwig acting again.
I saw it in theaters and thought it was just okay. I'm gonna rewatch it now that it's streaming and I hope to get more out of it. It had a lot of great moments, but I don't think everything really came together for me.
I really liked it. The dialogue was awesome. The cast was great.
I didn’t like it on the whole. I thought the drastic shifts in tonality were too jarring, and felt unsettled without any real payoff. There were powerful moments, and Adam Driver was good (as always). The outro dance number / credits was laughably insufferable and prolonged.
Having seen that ending clip online, apart of me appreciates the ballsiness of it? It definitely got me intrigued to watch it. Plus, we got new LCD Soundsystem music out of it so that’s sick!
ballsy??? the psuedo intellectual dialogue, the unfortunate staging and messyness of it all. it was very disappointing and when a fun time sing along dance number came on at the end i had realised the film was over and gladly walked out of the theater. i havent thought about this movie at all since seeing it, and i am so glad.
That is exactly what the book is like though.
That may be true, but the question was asking for people's thoughts on the movie.
I really enjoyed it. I teach this novel quite often and its one of those that people have talked about adapting for years but no one could quite get right. The David Foster Wallace Infinite Jest js another postmodern novel that many have tried to adapt but no studio would touch. Kudos to them for making a decent film!
Infinite Jest is like 15 times the size of white noise
It is. And both were long considered unadaptable works. That was my big point. Postmodern fiction, in general, is really tough
What do you think about the feasibility of an Underworld adaptation? I actually think it could be a decent miniseries.
I loved the original song from lcd soundsystem
Loved it. I love the book, Don DeLillo's writing style, and postmodernism in general, so this was a fairly sure thing for me. I think a lot of people are struggling with a movie that is essentially about nothing because nothing is the point. I think you also need some tolerance for philosophical pontificating to enjoy it.
Would you recommend reading the book first? Just out of curiosity.
I would. It will give you a feel for the tone and probably make the movie feel less aimless. It’s a short read too. Only took me a couple days.
It will definitely help. This is a pretty good adaptation of a novel that would be very hard to adapt. It’s also just a fantastic book from one of the great writers of our times.
I loved it too, and am somewhat baffled by all the lukewarm reactions. This is a million times better than “Nope.” I’ve seen people say that the family/kids dialog has “no point” but most of it was funny, and the key to almost everything is in the title. The white noise is the noise we surround ourselves with as a distraction from thoughts about death. And anyone who has young children as I do knows full well that they are constantly talking. Asking random questions at inappropriate times, barking out facts and figures, etc.
I haven’t read the novel but I liked the movie! I thought there were a lot of things that could have been metaphorical, and maybe there could have been a relation to consumerism/capitalism? But I’m not sure about that. ***spoiler alert, please do not read beyond this point if you haven’t seen the film*** I appreciate the dialogues, loved the set design, the added dancing in the end, and the mysterious character selling “Dylar”. I wish he had a more elaborate back story! Do they tell his background in the book?
Don’t love Baumbach as much as most but I did enjoy this one. Worth a watch for sure.
as a fan of the novel, i was really disappointed that they cut two small scenes that seemed to me to be extremely thematically important and like, the first things i think of when i think of “white noise” the “most photographed barn in america” bit and the bit when one of his kids whispers “toyota celica” in their sleep otherwise, it was decent!
I thought it was kind of shockingly bad
I am not normally a kind of guy to go full on "1/10, boo, if you like this you're pretending, worst film of my life" but I sincerely did feel, almost as soon as this ended, that it was maybe the most I have disliked a film, ever. I have seen films that were not very entertaining. I have seen films that were grating. I have seen films that were a bit muddled and incoherent. But I generally still try and focus on what I like about a film. But I can't think of many films that I found boring, irritating, and muddled all at the time. There was no angle, no way I could find of watching it that brought me any relief.
Interesting think piece. I had fun.
I loved it. Obviously it's a bit hard to follow at times, but being a fan of the novel I don't think there was any other way to adapt it to a film. It also made me realize I have a crush on Greta Gerwig.
Shoulda played in theaters longer
Seeing a lot of just outright bad media literacy in this thread. The movie isn't perfect, but so many of the critques here are bad faith and don't really engage with the movie. My main issues are that it's overlong and some of the editing (especially the climax) are borderline pretentious. For a supposedly unfilmable novel though, Baumbach did an incredible job that was filled with strong performances and kept faithfully to the tone of the novel. This movie definitely isn't for everyone (i watched it with my parents who both fell alseep), and the release and promotion didn't help. I can't see White Noise having the same level of popularity as Marriage Story, but it felt like that's what it was marketed as. I think Netflix shot it in the foot by not explicitly stating it's more artsy than anything. The preview video i saw when I hovered over it on Netflix was the comic car chase seen which is really not represenative of the movie. If you're willing to engage with White Noise on its own terms, it's pretty great
Feels like it tried to compress a lot of material into too short a movie.
I think I agree with most of what has been said here already. I'll add that I was particularly excited for it because of what I've seen from Baumbach previously ("Noah and the Whale", "Francis Ha", "Marriage Story") and him getting a big budget to do something truly wild. The themes represented in the film were great, in my opinion. Truly a movie about the pitfalls of consumerism/capitalism at its core. They were represented by Driver's bumbling attitude towards anything juxtaposed with his family's hyperbolic reactions to everything. There's also tons of humor in "White Noise" that I honestly didn't expect, but it was welcome and almost necessary for how dense the movie is. I'm not sure if I'm ready to watch it again because of how exhausting it was, but maybe with a crowd it'd be a fun watch and discussion.
Silly, beautiful, artificial.
Felt like watching Triangle of Sadness again, it drags halfway through the runtime after the "fun parts" over. I don't hate it but it's hard recommend.
Ew nothing like Triangle of Sadness at all??! This was a wanna be PTA film that completely fails. Triangle of Sadness is hilarious, and well made. How are they even similar?
Watching it now. So far, so good, but not familiar with the source material.
I read the novel about a year ago and appreciate how faithful it is to the source, including the third act here that kind of slows down the film as it sputters to the end while in the novel it really works because it makes the post-apocalypse normalcy of forever Americana feel like a post-death bliss. Life goes on but things will never be normal ever again The novel’s end is a lot darker: he shoots Mr. Grey, saves him and returns home to a kind of alienation from his family. Here he is joined by his wife after he kills his shadow and it’s a funnier more happy version of the ending. I thought the filmmaking and production design of the film were superb, and it translated the language of the novel very successfully. It’s not perfect but I didn’t expect it to work as well as it did.
overall disappointed
I was really excited to see it because I loved the book, but I was kind of disappointed. Felt a bit boring compared to the kind of intense vibe of the book. Could have been more visually psychological I think. I just don’t think DeLillo’s writing translates well to screen!
It glossed over so many of my favorite parts of the book and painted over an entire character I like but overall was a pretty good adaptation of a very tough book to adapt! I wonder how anyone who hasn’t read it got anything out of it though.
By far Baumbach’s worst film.
It’s slow but some really good and subtle humor. I have to say, a kid of the 89’s, the detail to product packaging is impeccable. All the packages look as I remember them.
Fat adam is a fucking brilliant choice
My alternate title is "robots tell you the perspective they represent about the anxieties of accepting death." Go for it if that's what you're into, I thought it was pretty easily the weakest Noah Baumbach movie I've seen.
Why do these DeLillo adaptations have to be so stylized?
Didn't finish it. It felt exhausting to watch when I just wanted to chill and watch a nice movie. You have to be *on* to watch it.
Contrived long winded shot lazily like a 90s music video. Weak script weak performances weak premise. Nah.
I only made it twenty minutes and I’m GenX. Baumbach represented us for decades but I couldn’t stand this one.
Huge Noah fan…but did NOT enjoy this film.
Like the book, wasn't crazy about Baumbach's interpretation
Hated it. Started off really well then became a bloviating, drawn out, wannabe PTA x WA art house flick with no real direction. Way too dialogue heavy, which made runtime was especially hard to get through.
I want to read the book before I see it
I wish I had heard of the book first. But I liked the movie!
Overrated and not cohesive. Like all of Noah Baumbach’s work.
Snorefest. It’s pretentious and boring.
Meh..It wasn't funny to me and it felt like it was a try hard "artsy" movie with ADHD.
It was entertaining. The visuals, costumes, sets were fun to look at. I liked the dialogue. Good acting by most of the actors. Greta’s character and acting was pretty average though. Good themes, and I enjoyed some of the academia scenes. I do think other movies have done a better job of portraying anxiety as has been discussed already I like that Baumbach did something different. All his movies have a very similar tone/themes and this was definitely a departure which I appreciate. It’s not mind blowing but it is worth a 2hr watch, especially considering how much garbage Neatflix puts out
Turned it off about 25 mins in.
Made it 15 minutes further than I could.
I’d call White Noise one of my favorite novels and this film was utterly unwatchable. First movie I’ve turned off in a long time.
Weird, this movie made me feel the exact same way the novel did
It's a train wreck! The book's absurdist dialogue sounded painfully stiff and unnatural coming out of the horribly miscast actors' mouths. (Driver and Gerwig are way too young for the roles and not up to the challenge.) The satire felt dated and heavy handed, with hardly any of the jokes hitting the mark, and the plot was an overstuffed mess. The best part was the middle section with the fallout and panic from the chemical spill, but then the story veered down a ludicrous side path that didn't add up to much. I love Noah Baumbach but this was a total misfire for me. At least the ending credits were fun!
Who would you cast instead?
Funny you should ask. I've been trying to recast the movie in my head, but it's hard to think of actors who could pull off that dialogue. Jeff Goldman could probably do it but he's too old now. Maybe Robert Downing Jr. or Adrien Brody? Wynona Ryder as the wife? I don't know! I'm stumped.
I have to agree with how the dialogue came out - often the tone was wrong, pacing and it could have gone down a Before Midnight alley took a wrong turn. I actually thought Driver was best cast, he looked pure 80s middle age middle income dad. His wife I felt was a miscast. Her tone really didn’t sit well, it would go from monotones to these fake stutters (during the crying scene) - the delivery was really unnatural - even though I knew they were trying to stick with the original context of the novel. I felt like maybe Bauchach was also a little inspired by play movie movies like The Cook, The Thief….but it just felt like a play at times made in first semester college. The ending would have been cool in a complete different movie. Also the middle kid asking those questions over and over in situation where any kid would be reacting with fear was so ridiculous. I get the “white noise” and dysfunctional family but it wasn’t executed correctly. Not enough speaking over each other. Too many “fact” moments. Just really unnatural even for movies. Loved driver two door scene
Is the satire dated, though? I mean, death and our fear of it, and the mitigation of that fear through consumerism—these are perennial topics. If anything the culture we live in right now is even more death-obsessed.
Driver and Gerwig are both turning 40 this year. How are they too young to have teenage children and been through a few divorces? People marry and have children in their late teens and early 20s still to this day.
He’s 50 in the book. I just don’t find Driver believable as a 50 year old college professor who’s been married 7 times and has a bunch of kids. Gerwig isn’t believable as a parent either, she looks and talks like a twenty-something. But it’s not just their age that’s the problem. Neither of them have the acting chops to pull off DeLillo’s stylized dialogue. They sounded so stilted to me, like they were reading from cue cards. I felt like I was watching a high school play with teenagers pretending to be adults. For me, the movie never struck the right tone.
Hated it. The constant rapid fire conversation back and forth gave me no time to take a breath and digest what I was taking in. I know DeLillo's writing is often focused on nothing, but these characters were overly neurotic about trivial matters. Had to turn it off after 45 minutes. Keep down voting for an opinion. OK, reddit...
It's almost as if the rapid fire conversation was a sort of white noise... Really though all the reasons you listed for not liking the movie was thematically the point
that came to mind in that early kitchen scene when everyone was talking at once. white noise
Well isn’t this how Reddit works? People agree with you and they upvote, they disagree so they downvote?
I disagree that this is the case, and have downvoted you accordingly,
I appreciate your honesty, upvotes appropriately
Mostly boring. As someone in academia, enjoyed the university bits, though.
I liked it, especially since Driver is my favorite actor, and I love Gerwig and Baumbach. My mind wandered a bit during the second act, and I didn’t love the jarring transition between the second and third act. However, there is a lot to like here so for me the flaws were easy to overlook. Incredible production design, super colorful. Would love to have it in the collection. Seems possible since the company has a great relationship with noah.
Really liked parts, thought some of it was hilarious, particularly the beginning. The talk about hitler and Elvis going on at the same time was absolutely cracking me up. As was the ever changing name for the black cloud. Once it actually turned into a “disaster” movie and all the ending parts I was kind of out though. Glad I watched it but don’t think it’s great. I like it less the more I think about it tbh, has a lot of very interesting ideas but I don’t think it comes together particularly well.
I loved it and the beginning totally built up the middle and end
It had some good qualities but never came together into something amazing. the final dance sequence is easily my favorite scene of the year tho
A very good movie. But without knowing anything about the movie or the book you could tell is an adaptation and the very similar cinematography with the Squid...the character of the smart boy and the college clique gave it away. So not original, but consistent. A professional at work.
Never read the book, but I really loved it. Super strange but very interesting. The lecture scene with Driver and Cheadle is one of the best of the year.
Loved this movie. It was drowning in subtext and satire, which appeals to me. I know the dialogue was unnatural, but I felt it fit the tone of the movie. This film was not meant to be naturalistic. It wasn’t meant to be a National Lampoon movie (despite station wagon off-road driving). It wasn’t meant to be a disaster movie (despite a man-made disaster). Nor was it meant to be a family drama (despite pairing Driver and Baumbach reprising their partnership from Marriage Story. This was about the cocoon of unreality we create around ourselves to avoid dealing with reality. We do this by surrounding ourselves with literal and figurative fluff. When viewed objectively, we all look schizophrenic. I think the above dynamic was delivered in the performances of Driver and Gerwig, who were both too immersed in their own bullshit to be aware of anyone else. I loved the set design and how it supported the theme. The music was reminiscent of John Carpenter up until the credits. And even then, the LCD Soundsystem number blended right in. This may be starting to be over-done in 80’s period pieces (Stranger Things), but I honestly can’t get enough. In that same vein, this film is chock full of well worn tropes which are not relevant to the story, but fit the theme. We draw comfort from these because they are familiar, just like the cereal aisle. Post-modernism had not come to mind for me before reading the comments here, but I suppose that is exactly what this movie is in presentation and meaning. This reminded me of a Jarmusch film, but in living color(tm).
I loved it. Probably my favorite movie of the year.
It's a perfect adaptation of the novel. Both include some interesting ideas, exchanges, maneuvers, etc but neither are really on the whole very good. Delillo's book is fine but not a great novel. Baumbach's movie is fine but not a great film. It is interesting to see how he burns Netflix money to make something totally uninterested in confirming to audience expectations. And the deep De Palma pastiche at the motel is the best part.
Garbage
Garbage
Ive only watched the first half hour, but im loving it so far. Im in love with the dialogue and general charm of the film.
I think it’s a modern masterpiece… it’ll just take time to be seen that way
I completely agree. Waiting for day it’s picked in a Criterion closet video, probably in the year 2075.
An admirable attempt at a very complex book/subject. Quite funny in parts, and enthralling. Overall, though, not all that entertaining for me.
We discuss non-Criterion films here now?
Criterion director at least
I look forward to our in depth discussion on the Transformers series in that case lol
I mean at this point at least itd be something different!
Personally I don't really see the issue with people wanting to discuss recent films on a sub full of film lovers - especially a film like Banshees that seems highly likely to enter the collection at some point. It's easy enough to just ignore or hide posts about non-Criterion films if you don't want to see them.
OP isn’t discussing it though, they haven’t responded to a single comment or posted their own thoughts, it’s just karma farming.
There’s a very real chance Criterion releases it someday so..
Sure. But why not wait and discuss it here when and if that happens? It's not like there aren't plenty of more suitable subreddits to discuss it like /r/TrueFilm
Technically there is a chance Criterion releases anything, so let’s open up the discussion on Space Jam like true cinephiles
There’s a very real chance they could release thousands of movies some day.
This is a discussion forum, so why shouldn’t people discuss those films? Obviously the line has to be drawn somewhere, but it’s not like people are making posts about Jurassic World: Dominion ffs. Baumbach already has 4 films in the collection and, with the way Criterion releases Netflix films, this could very well come out in the next 5 years. It’s not off-topic to be asking what the community thought about the film.
The trending post in the sub just 3 days ago was Jackass 1-4 should be released by Criterion.
And those are interesting and daring pieces of art; the suggestion that they’re comparable to Jurassic World is laughable.
Sure.
over a thousand blu-rays in the Criterion Collections. Thousands more on the Criterion Channel. Yet it's way more popular here to discuss non-Criterion films and fantasize over films that should be in the collection.
One of the main reasons the sub has dropped off considerably, and why me and few others formed r/criterionconversation
*Danny Devito voice* A sub above!
It was better than I thought but still kind of hit or miss. I thought the supermarket scenes really caught what DeLillo was getting at, and not just the final scene. I’m impressed Baumbach got that big of a budget to make this.
I love Noah Baumbach, and Adam Driver. I love Gerwig as a director but less acting. This movie is just..not good. Towards the bottom of the list for 2022 for me. Tonally all over the place, story makes jumps with no payoff, and the dialogue is awful too. There’s plenty of editing issues, cringy CGI, and just not a lot of redeeming qualities. Driver is as good as material allows. Cheadle shines nicely. Some nice cinematography but that’s about where the compliments end. I know it’s supposed to be postmodern but that doesn’t have to mean “bad”
I’m all about it, the crying bedroom scene was too long which makes the key change hard to adjust to but the whole thing is wild and I love the whole notion of a sea of information that doesn’t mean anything but also has key details and how do you tune yourself to the right frequency to hear what you need to hear.
I watched about 10 minutes and turned it off
He left Jennifer Jason Leigh and turned into a hack
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It was very true to the novel; though I am not sure the novel should have been made into a film. There are a few great scenes in the movie, but overall I didn't find it to be an impactful film and I would think those who haven't read the book may find the dialogue and sequencing to be a bit strange. Huge fan of Baumbauch, Driver, and Gerwig, but this one could have been left on the page.
Murder me with a rusty spoon before I’d watch this DeLillo/Baumbach monstrosity
I think the movie was quite ambitious. It was certainly a bit different from what we have come to expect from Baumbach. But there were, according to me instances where Baumbach's signature style could be visible. The movie certainly has flaws, but I think on the while it gets balanced. I mean it was supposed to be an absurdist movie. So on that regard the people acting in a way that normally isn't how they are supposed to act is kind of an important thing. That being said, certain elements of the movie were a bit too absurdist and kind of made it strenuous to overlook them. The dialogue is, as we have come to expect from Baumbach, natural at the surface level, but has thematic undertones embedded in it. Still the dialogue felt awkward and absurd at some points. I guess that was how it was supposed to be given the absurdist tone. On the whole I would say I liked the movie, but it certainly isn't Baumbach's best work.
loved it. im sure people will come around to it in a few years, like inherent vice
It was a good, 6.5 out of 10 for me. Technically speaking, it's top notch. Shooting, editing, all that is great. I just could not connect to most of the characters, and I wish the imagery of the cloud representing looking death and paranoia was a bit more constant throughout the film. Frankly, I feel like one could cut the whole cloud and evacuation, make J.A.K.'s approaching death something else like cancer linked to things like they discuss in the grocery store, and the movie would be the same, if not more cohesive.
Too close to the source material and not all that great. Liked the one scene with Cheadle and Driver giving dueling lectures though.
I watched 20 minutes then fell asleep. I’ll finish it eventually, but it just felt like another quirky Baumbach film. Take my opinion with a grain of salt though. I’ve never been a fan of Baumbach and mainly watch his new movies because they get a lot of critical acclaim.
hated the dialogue/writing personally. found greta's performance to be bad. i prefer her behind the camera. don cheadle and the son were the best part imo
I actually really loved it. Has its issues no doubt but its one of those movies that I just dug. First two acts are definitely stronger than the final act but I didn’t hate it like some people did.
i watched it a couple days ago and the further out i am from the viewing, the more i like it.
Hopefully time will be kind to this movie, I did enjoy it enough to buy a criterion release if they do make one
White noise was a fitting title for a movie that droned on without much happening.
That's the point entirely. That was the point of the book too. It was an excellent adaptation. And much like the book, quite divisive
The book was shoved down my throat freshman year of college so I won’t be going anywhere near the film :)
It’s terrible Bloated and dull
Film is really up its own ass.
Terrible movie that tries very hard and fails to be a PTA like film. I’m confused by all the people saying they enjoyed it. People saying they like this is a case of the emperor wearing no clothes.
Or, get this, they have different opinions. I know, crazy right?
Refuse to acknowledge it
Sounds like a you problem
love it !! never been huge on Baumbach as a director but i feel like he really stepped up here, lots of incredible looking shots and sequences, along with a ton of great production design work. Also generally just like a very good adaptation of the novel too. Also just love that he basically scammed Netflix out of millions of dollars on a movie that was 100% never gonna be a hit about a guy who is a professor in Hitler Studies. The LCD Soundsystem ending credits probably cost more than entire movies he’s worked on. it whips
thought it was just ok. i would be surprised if criterion picks this one up. if they did it would only be bc of their relationship with baumbach