ReelBob: ‘White Noise’ ★½

Director Noah Baumbach's adaptation of Don DeLillo's 1980s dark satire is so earnest and serious that it obscures whatever comic moments it tries to provide.

Director Noah Baumbach’s “White Noise” is a self-indulgent, pretentious drama with dialogue that sounds as if it were cribbed from some early 1930s Broadway drawing-room drama.

The verbal exchanges reveal that Baumbach is more interested in impressing people with his word acumen than telling a story and involving us with his characters.

This, however, may be Baumbach’s intention. His movie, an adaptation of Don DeLillo’s best-selling novel, is a satire, chronicling one family’s attempts — hilarious and horrifying — to deal with the minutiae of everyday life, while contemplating the larger mysteries of love, death and happiness in a world that seems to have gone mad.

The movie’s main flaw is that the characters are emotionally inaccessible. You really don’t give a damn about any of them or their situations — which includes a toxic cloud from a crash of a truck and train, both carrying hazardous materials.

The movie centers on the Gladney family. Jack (Adam Driver) is a professor at the College-on-the Hill where he pioneered the field of Hitler studies; his wife, Babette (Greta Gerwig); and their combined children from previous marriages. Jack and Babette’s marriage is the fourth for both.

The movie grows tiresome nearly from the outset with Jack and Babette endlessly obsessing over death, and each claiming they want to go first because they couldn’t live without each other. It’s such insincere drivel that you don’t buy it for a second.

The accident that creates the cataclysmic event takes up much of the film with the family having to evacuate their home and — again — droning on about death.

The most distracting aspect of “White Noise” is Driver’s paunch and receded hairline. Most of your time is focused on his looks than anything he is saying.

Even though “White Noise” is supposed to be a black comedy, it doesn’t feel funny because the characters are too earnest and serious.

Even a decent Danny Elfman score cannot lift the film.

Another subplot is Babette’s addiction to a drug called Dylar, for which she traded sexual favors, and Jack’s search for the man, whom he wants to kill.

The movie features Don Cheadle as another windbag professor.

“White Noise” offers some life and color when characters go to the A&P for groceries. The brightly lit store is in stark contrast to the pale colors that dominate the rest of the movie. Baumbach sees it as the nexus of the community.

If DeLillo’s book was supposed to be a commentary on culture in 1980s America, the premise did not transfer well to the screen.

I have enjoyed some of Baumbach’s movies — most notably “Marriage Story” but “White Noise” simply turned me off. It plays like a movie in which Baumbach is more interested in showing off than in entertaining his audience.

I am a founding member of the Indiana Film Journalists Association. I review movies, 4K UHD, Blu-rays and DVDs for ReelBob (ReelBob.com), The Film Yap and other print and online publications. I can be reached by email at bobbloomjc@gmail.com. You also can follow me on Twitter @ReelBobBloom and on Facebook at ReelBob.com or the Indiana Film Journalists Association. My movie reviews also can be found at Rotten Tomatoes: www.rottentomatoes.com.

WHITE NOISE
1½ stars out of 4
(R), violence, language