White Noise

When 30 minutes into a comedy which has failed to make you laugh, even once, you know you are in for trouble. Quirky, without ever being funny, White Noise is full of supposedly smart dumb people dealing with situations outside their control. Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig star in roles more befitting a stage performance given the unnatural words and candence from writer/director Noah Baumbach's script which never once feels anything more than scripted satirical content.

Driver is a Hitler expert at the generically-titled College-on-the-Hill dealing with his wife's secret tied to a medical trial, supporting a colleague (Don Cheadle) by helping to Hitlerize Elvis Pressley, and leading the family through the traumatic events after an airborne toxic event occurs just outside of the sleepy college town.

While the film is filled with absurdity, including the government's often contradictory handling of the situation after the "event," it can't find bring out any humor from these situations. And by making the characters so quirky Baumbach forgets to imbue them with anything remotely relatable. The result is we aren't invested in either the characters or the events they become part of which lacks any of the punch from Don DeLillo's book. More slog than satire, White Noise is best ignored and allowed to eventually fade into the static and be forgotten.

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• Title: White Noise
• IMDb: link