I have to admire Noah Baumbach for following up Marriage Story with White Noise. Apart from each starring Adam Driver and centring on a family, the two couldn't be more different. One's a deeply emotional, easy to follow, and very moving family drama, and the other one... well, it's White Noise.

It's got a premise that's hard to describe. There's a disaster which causes a great deal of panic for much of the film, but it's not the film's entire focus. In some ways, it feels a little like three short films all starring the same characters, and it's a bit hard to figure out how it all connects sometimes.

The movie reminded me of other wild, unpredictable, all over the place movies in recent years, like Inherent Vice and Under the Silver Lake, but both of those felt like they had more method to their madness, and were consistent with their craziness.

White Noise definitely isn't bad though. Adam Driver is as great as always, there were some funny parts, and much of the first hour or so is quite exciting. I'd say it's the final 45 minutes that have a few parts that drag, but then again, it builds to a good final scene, so make of that what you will.

I look forward to seeing what people say when this drops on Netflix (but who knows whether it'll get much attention - it can be hard to predict what will trend). I have no shame in admitting that maybe some of the discussion will help me understand the parts of this film that I didn't quite get from watching it just now.

(Also, if the Academy Awards don't nominate the LCD Soundsystem song written for this movie for Best Original Song, then they're cowards and/or they have no ears).

Greetings again from the darkness. Writer-director Noah Baumbach's latest film is one of those that causes us to feel a bit guilty at not finding it as important or noble as it finds itself. That's not meant to be as critical as it sounds. Afterall, Baumbach is the one who has managed to bring the "unfilmable" ... Don DeLillo's 1985 novel (National Book Award for fiction) ... to the big screen. Baumbach's last film was MARRIAGE STORY (2019),a masterpiece on relationships, and while this current film is a more ambitious undertaking, it likely will prove less accessible to many viewers.

Adam Driver stars as Jack Gladney, a professor at a (fictitious) midwestern college, who has reached celebrity status through his Hitler studies curriculum - although he remains uneasy at his own inability to speak German. Jack's own home life teeters on bedlam most every day. He and his wife Babbette (Greta Gerwig, director Baumbach's real life spouse) are both on their fourth marriage, and their blended family of kids results in tension and more overlapping dialogue than one would find in a filled sports arena. Babbette is showing signs of early onset dementia, and is regularly and secretly taking a drug called Dylar. Of course, it's the 1980's and Google hasn't been born, so Jack and Babbette's daughter Denise (Raffey Cassidy) find themselves scouring books and asking doctors about the mysterious drug.

There are some amazing lines (most taken straight from DeLillo's novel) throughout the film, and Act 1 features a stunning rap-battle type lecture with Jack and his colleague Murray Suskind (Don Cheadle) taking on Elvis versus Hitler and their relationships with their respective mothers. It's filmed like a boxing match and most of the students seem oblivious to this treat. Act 2 is labeled "The Airborne Toxic Event" and it's a fiery tanker car (filled with toxic waste) explosion that marks the transition. A mass evacuation takes the family to Camp Daffodil for 9 days, and Jack's limited exposure to the toxic air places him in peril and leads to Act 3 where the fear of death merges with the discovery of Babbette's Dylar source. The question then becomes, will Jack first die or commit murder ... because, as we are told, men are killers.

Jack's son is aptly named Heinrich and is played by Sam Nivola (the son of Alessandro Nivola and Emily Mortimer). Baumbach is an intellect obsessed with neurotic intellectual characters, and he thrives at blurring the line between satire and societal commentary ... which is obviously why he was drawn to DeLillo's novel. The film is often chaotic, and is an odd blend of science fiction teasing the end of our world, the price of consumerism, and existential contemplation reflecting our fear of death. Especially effective are the Production Design of Jess Gonchor and the work of composer Danny Elfman. Perhaps there could be no better ending than the dance number in the vitally important local grocery store that continues through the closing credits. The film is funny, frightening, and a bit of a downer that offers more questions than answers - an adaptation that serves the novel.

Opening in theaters on December 2, 2022.

Having glanced at the critic reviews I'm not surprised by the general response that White Noise tries to cram too much in/tries to address too many ideas and becomes muddled. But so what? Does that ruin the possibility for entertainment? Not a bit. This is a film that delights in being muddled, fragmented, and many things at once.

White Noise is fundamentally a strange and unfocused ramble of existentialist angst, full of surreal and absurdist humour with a little horror thrown into the mix from time to time. The plot is divided into very distinct chapters which constantly lurch through styles and levels of seriousness and silliness in a way that often reminded me of Netflix's miniseries Maniac, especially given the retro setting and the obsession with the medicalisation of personal problems, and the desperate hope that a little crackpot scientific advancement could save us all. The po-faced absurdity of the characters and situations is also reminiscent of Baumbach's earlier work with Wes Anderson (particularly The Life Aquatic, for which he wrote the screenplay).

Adam Driver is at his most hilarious as the pompous academic, with Don Cheadle excellently serving as his tirelessly philosophising sidekick. In fact everyone is a delight to watch, even Greta Gerwig (how does she manage to be so watchable and yet so abysmally wooden at the same time?). The plot takes this hapless group into some wild and extreme places, and by about the 90-minute mark I was honestly having so much fun wondering where this trip would go next. Unfortunately, the film does sag in its final episode, as the plot becomes less imaginative and more familiar in subject matter. And the ultimate message of the ending is rather trite and simplistic given the ideas it explores in the earlier chapters.

However, I would still highly recommend giving White Noise a try, particularly if absurdist humour is your thing. It manages to do a lot of things extremely well, especially portraying the sheer madness of everyday existence.