White Noise

Based on Don DeLillo’s oddball book, White Noise follows pretentious college instructor Jack Gladney (Adam Driver) as he experiences a series of personal and professional mishaps over the course of a few eventful weeks. Filmmaker Noah Baumbach, armed with his own screenplay, delivers a hit-and-miss adaptation that is, without a doubt, quite faithful to the equally erratic source material, and although the movie remains watchable for most of its overlong running time, White Noise suffers from an arms-length atmosphere that effectively (and thoroughly) prevents the viewer from working up much interest in or sympathy for the characters’ ongoing exploits – with the tolerable vibe due predominantly to Lol Crawley’s stirring, 1980s-inspired visuals and a series of top-notch performances. (Driver’s magnetic, commanding turn remains a highlight, to be sure, but the periphery cast, which includes Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle, and Jodie Turner-Smith, is equally impressive.) And while Baumbach has suffused the proceedings with several standout sequences and set-pieces, including a terrific stretch focused on a mysterious “airborne toxic event,” White Noise‘s preponderance of bizarre, off-kilter happenings, coupled with the characters’ relentless penchant for quirky speechifying, ultimately ensures that the picture is rarely, if ever, able to make the impact for which Baumbach is obviously striving.

** out of ****