Prepping for Noah Baumbach’s upcoming White Noise, I recently read Don DeLillo’s novel of the same name on which the film is based. It’s a challenging novel, full of philosophical conversations about the nature of life and death. The novel exhilarates with the power of DeLillo’s skill as a brilliant writer, assuming you have the stomach for the at-times irrationally neurotic characters and his penchant for a meandering plot.
White Noise remains one of my most anticipated films of the fall season because I’m fascinated to see what Noah Baumbach will do with the material. Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig (she’s perfectly cast) star as parents trying to navigate an “Airborne Toxic Event” and its aftermath with their extended family. The film also stars Don Cheadle, Andre Benjamin, and Jodie Turner-Smith.
I’m very intrigued to say the least.
Here’s the first look at the film which will premiere at the Venice Film Festival next week. It will drop in limited theaters and on Netflix in the fall.
WHITE NOISE
Date: Coming Soon
Writer: Noah Baumbach
Producers: Noah Baumbach, p.g.a., David Heyman, p.g.a., Uri Singer.
Cast: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, Raffey Cassidy, Sam Nivola, May Nivola, Lars Eidinger, Andre Benjamin, Jodie Turner-Smith
Logline: At once hilarious and horrifying, lyrical and absurd, ordinary and apocalyptic, White Noise dramatizes a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world. Based on the book by Don DeLillo.
I think it looks perfectly splendid. I am glad there is the line “I want to know exactly how scared I should be” which is more or less the core of the novel. The cuts are quick, but it does seem that most of the book is in the film to some extent.
The book is super talky, it almost gets lost in itself in the last third when it doesn’t really need to. But for the movie to work, it really needs to be 150 minutes or more, I would think.
None of these trailers are really doing it for me…..maybe it’s just me?
None of what I’ve seen so far would be what I would call a sure fire Oscar contender.
As much as I love Adam Driver (a Baumbach regular), in adapting I might’ve gone a more middle-aged comedy-associated everyman actor for the lead here (think along the lines of Stiller, Sudeikis, Bateman, etc.). But it’s been many years since I read the book, could be wrong. Driver-Gerwig, well I guess it’s gonna be a Baumbach, for better or worse.
When reading the book, I kinda was thinking about Leo DiCaprio, as his character in Don’t Look Up shares some DNA with Jack Gladney.
I could see that.
Kyle Chandler might also work for a number of DeLillo protagonists.
Nope for white people.
Having just read the novel recently – visually, the film looks a bit too slick and the trailer music is too ostentatious for the overall tone of the film. That said, the supermarket scene looks spot on and I certainly approve of Don Cheadle as Murray Siskind.
Noah Baumbach would not have been my first choice to adapt White Noise (I think the Coens would have been perfectly suited for it), but I’m certainly still intrigued with what he does with it.