Film Pick of the Week: White Noise - review by Yvette Huddleston

Since the source material is one of those books that others have thought to adapt but is considered by many ‘unfilmable’, Baumbach is also challenging himself here, but he rises to it. He is helped enormously by the calibre of cast he has on board – for a start, Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig in the lead roles. Classy, incredibly versatile actors, they both give outstanding performances. Driver plays middle-aged provincial university professor Jack Gladney, whose specialist subject is “Hitler Studies”, Gerwig is his wife Babette, who teaches exercise classes to older people.

They have a comfortable, busy life with a blended family of four children, from their previous marriages. They do all the usual things that middle-income, liberal-thinking American families in the 1980s do – and seem to spend a lot of time in the supermarket. Jack and Babette appear to have a pretty solid, loving relationship but both share a deep fear of dying – their pillow talk frequently consists of a discussion around who should die first and which of them would cope best without the other.

Then their nebulous fear of death becomes a bit more real and closer to home when a collision between a huge truck carrying gasoline and a train transporting dangerous waste causes an explosion, environmental damage and a subsequent “airborne toxic event”. People living nearby, which includes the Gladneys, are instructed to evacuate and the family pile into their station wagon, heading to an impromptu safe zone set up in a scout camp. In addition to this terrifying event – the scenes on the road as panicky families flee are pretty upsetting – Babette’s teenage daughter has previously confided in Jack that she is worried about her mother after finding some mysterious pills, called Dylar, that she has been taking in secret.

As you might expect from Baumbach, there are plenty of stylised set pieces – including a strange, unnerving ‘haunting’, a tandem lecture delivered by Jack and his Elvis expert colleague Murray (Don Cheadle), a fabulous end credits sequence in the supermarket – and a lot of wordy dialogue. It is testament to the skill of Driver and Gerwig that they make you care about the rather self-regarding and self-obsessed Jack and Babette, managing to bring a level of warmth and authenticity to their characters.