Out of the ordinary films are fun to watch, and the latest black humor flick “White Noise” from Noah Baumbach is just that. It’s just another day for the large 4 children blended family of the hero Jack and his 2nd? 3rd? 4th? wife Babette. But of course things go wrong, very wrong when a tanker truck hits a tanker train nearby, and there’s a large black, toxic cloud to deal with. Everyone evacuates in their town in Ohio, have to endure crowded highways, evacuation centers, mass confusion, annoying people, etc. There’s an endearing scene when one of the kids drops their beloved stuffed animal, and will Jack go back to find it? Will the family in their classic station wagon ever get away from that “airborne toxic event?” as announced on the radio? There are many tense moments to watch.
Jack’s current wife is not what she seems, a happy go lucky yoga instructor, but has a dark side (not to be disclosed by me). And there’s lot of scenes of happy food shopping in the colorful, orderly A & P supermarket for a family of six.
Jack teaches “Hitler Studies” to very large classes at an unknown Ohio college, and is learning Deutsch, which amused my Native German professor husband. Jack even team lectures about Hitler’s mother, with another colleague who lectures about Elvis’ mother. How absurd to compare the two.
Here’s the official write up on the film, and I have yet to read the book. Go see this movie if only to just laugh at the absurdity of governmental handling of crisis situations, how a “normal American family” reacts, and how to plan for anything like this in our futures. And of course, everyone contemplates Death, even the kids.
This is truly a black comedy about white noise.
“In White Noise, Oscar-nominated filmmaker Noah Baumbach’s faithful adaptation of Don DeLillo’s dystopian postmodern novel of the same name, Adam Driver plays Jack Gladney, a professor of Hitler studies at The-College-on-the-Hill, husband to Babette (Greta Gerwig), and father to four children/stepchildren. When their idyllic liberal college town is torn asunder by a chemical spill from a rail car that releases an “Airborne Toxic Event”, Jack is forced to confront his biggest fear – his own mortality. Although set in the 1980s, Baumbach’s inspired vision of DeLillo’s novel brilliantly connects the material to our uneasy present, creating a sly, hilarious and lyrically absurd look at the dark underbelly of American life. (Dir. by Noah Baumbach, 2022, USA, 136 mins., Rated R).”
Still playing at the Loft Cinema, 3233 E. Speedway Blvd, Tucson (east of Country Club Rd.):
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