WHITE NOISE

After Marriage Story, a Noah Baumbach-Adam Driver collaboration presents huge promise. The director-actor duo come together once more for White Noise.

A rare combination of the absurd and the apocalyptic, White Noise has Baumbach packing the narrative with a wide range of ideas, most of which are contentious but timely.

The source material for White Noise is Don DeLillo’s book of the same name, which, over the decades, has largely been dismissed as “unfilmable”.

Thematically ambitious, White Noise takes place in small-town America where Jack Gladney (Driver), a professor of “Hitler studies” (a course he has coined himself, and also only teaches himself), lives with his wife Babette (actor-filmmaker Greta Gerwig). Their enormous family — a result of multiple marriages on both sides (“We are each other’s fourth,” Jack tells a colleague, played by Don Cheadle) — as well as the whole town face an imminent danger when an apocalyptic dark cloud descends over the town. That compels Jack to make some decisions which have far-reaching implications, and also expose the multiple sides of human nature.

An unconventional genre mashup, White Noise has a propelling idea at its core, but Baumbach overreaches himself, resulting in a film that is, quite frankly, all over the place. We understand what the man behind films like The Squid and the Whale and Frances Ha was going for — adding a touch of whimsy to a biting human satire — but the result is not as effective as one would have expected it to be.

The pandemic-inspired undertones lend a sense of immediacy to White Noise, which tries its best to capture the idiosyncratic spirit of the book. The dark comedy revels in absurdist humour, but a lot of it doesn’t land.

Baumbach attempts a film where philosophical discussions meld with academic satire, but despite fleeting moments of clever writing and sensitive poignancy, the writing is too haphazard and the tone too inconsistent.

While many have dismissed White Noise as a “car crash” from start to end, what I took back from the film were its flawless performances (Driver and Gerwig are exceptional) and Baumbach’s commendable efforts to present a genre-shifting film which touches upon consumerism as much as climate crisis.

Available on: Netflix

THE ELEPHANT WHISPERERS

Shortlisted for a possible Oscar nomination, to be announced later this month, The Elephant Whisperers is a deeply poignant, life-affirming story of a couple named Bomman and Bellie who devote their lives to caring for an orphaned elephant named Raghu.

The picturesque frames of rural Tamil Nadu and the heartwarming bond between humans and animals form the core of this Kartiki Gonsalves film which will draw you in gradually and keep you invested.

Just playing out over 41 minutes, The Elephant Whisperers will remind you of the Oscar winner My Octopus Teacher, presenting a sensitive look at the symbiotic nature between human and animal.

Being set in Theppakadu Elephant Camp of Mudumalai Tiger Reserve, Tamil Nadu, which is one of the oldest elephant camps in Asia, lends the documentary authenticity and makes it a jumbo-sized (pun intended) story that immediately finds a place in your heart.

Available on: Netflix