White Noise (2022)

 

Genre: Drama/ Comedy

Time: 2h 16mins

Director: Noah Baumbach

Quick Summary: College professor Jack Gladney and his family's comfortable suburban life is upended when a nearby chemical leak causes "The Airborne Toxic Event," releasing a noxious black cloud over the region that forces the Gladney family to evacuate.

This was extremely messy from start to finish. 

Everyone just seems to speak over each other leaving you no room to actually process what anyone is saying to add to this everyone talks in a monologue tone so it also becomes so boring to listen to this film.  As well, 90% of what anyone says is unrelated to anything that happens in the film, so It also becomes so confusing to even try to follow what's happening. 

Visually this film is very nice to look at, really that's what kept my interest. Everything is very colourful and full of patterns. Both this and the vocal noise is very overstimulating, which yes I know is supposed to be the point of the film. Added with literally new things happening every 5 seconds, it's awful to watch this film. Everything feels so rushed.

I know this film is supposed to be satire, but it just didn't sit right with me. The humour failed through rushed delivery leaving no time to actually process that it was supposed to be a joke, let alone it being satire. This film is so busy, I had no idea what was happening. It felt like a fever dream. Even in the scenes where everything was slowed down, I just tuned it out like (pun intended) white noise. 

There are simultaneously 3 different plots going on which never flow at all, they just jump between the 3 at random times. It's very chaotic amongst how random it is, and I felt like none of my questions got answered. 

In a lot of the characters, they're just there to be archetypes or items to keep the plot moving. The Father's wife literally just being there, and being useful only when she explains why she cheated, which also ends up being the most bizarre reason I have heard.  

This film is overall too much and overstimulating to watch.

2/10