Almost at the end of 2022, Netflix brings what could be its last big debut of the year. white noise hits streaming on December 30th with a strong cast and a more than interesting proposal — and all of this supported by an American classic and the current context itself. And all this to talk about our everyday agonies.
This look at human relationships and their dilemmas is something that director Noah Baumbach had already addressed in Story of a Marriage, one of the great recent classics of the platform and nominated for several Oscars. The difference is that, this time, he makes this reflection by turning the story into a dramedy, mixing existential conflict with absurd situations that generate a very peculiar humor.
It sounds confusing, and indeed it is—but it’s part of the proposal. This is because chaos is part of the aesthetics of white noise. It’s a film that has so much to say that it’s easy to get lost in the cacophony. And this is where the poster helps to understand what is being said: “if it’s everywhere, you can’t hear it”.
a modern classic
You may have heard the term white noise: it’s that constant sound that your brain simply ignores, a presence that becomes part of the landscape and you stop noticing it. And it is about these “noises” that the film addresses, especially when something makes us realize each one of them.
To do so, Baumbach adapts one of the modern classics of American literature. white noise is a book written by Don DeLillo in 1985 that makes a social satire based on these absurdities that have already become part of the “landscape” of society. This ranges from unbridled consumerism to the glorification of an empty intellectualism, passing through violence and the very spectacle of tragedies.
And it is precisely a tragedy that makes the family of university professor Jack Gladney face issues that have always been present in their lives, but which they never paid due attention to. It is after an industrial accident that they begin to face the fear of death and review their relationships with each other.
Updating the concept
This is a theme that fits like a glove in the current context. white noise comes to Netflix at a time very similar to the one in which the characters meet in the plot. We just went through a pandemic and many people were transformed from this terrible experience – and this is what Baumbach’s feature will be about.
Thus, we have an almost unrecognizable Adam Driver playing this professor specializing in Hitler and who reviews his entire relationship with his family and wife Babette (Greta Gerwig) after the small town where they live is taken over by a toxic cloud coming from an accident with chemical products. .
It’s a very obvious allegory for the pandemic, but what’s interesting about the feature is the way in which it will work, based on that, the white noises that make up our society. From the search for normality in the midst of the absurd to the idea of consumerism as a safety anchor, everything is a target of pinpricks.
And all this done with a very peculiar humor. It’s not that typical and expected comedy, but a more discomfort-oriented type that may not please everyone.
When does it premiere on Netflix
As said, white noise premieres on Netflix on December 30. That’s why it’s one of the last premieres of 2022 on the platform and arrives on the service just in time for you to watch it before the turn of the year.
