This is a film that I saw in the lead-up to the Oscar nominations—it wound up on some prediction lists as a Best Original Screenplay contender. Since it didn’t get nominated, and it was a “so many nominees, so little time” situation, I didn’t review it earlier. But now that the Oscars are over, I’m circling back to it.
In the 1980s, a blended family has their safe suburban life upended and is forced to deal with the existential crises that accompany a local environmental catastrophe. Professor Jack, his wife Babette, and their noisy houseful of kids debate how to respond when a truck carrying toxic chemicals crashes outside of town, sending a poisonous cloud up into the air. As they listen to officials whose instructions keep changing, they contemplate mortality.
That’s a rather neat summary for a film that really isn’t that neat. This is a sprawling movie that, while it places the toxic event in a central narrative position, also includes dueling lectures on Hitler and Elvis, a mystery prescription for a secret ailment, and a dance number in a supermarket. At two hours and sixteen minutes, the film takes its time in all the various places the story goes. It doesn’t always make sense, and it doesn’t always hold together, but there’s an odd, pedantic humor that mostly keeps it engaging.
I’ll be honest: I haven’t seen much of Noah Baumbach’s work. In fact, looking over his filmography, I realized this is only the second film of his I’ve seen, after Marriage Story. Based on what I’ve gleaned about his movies from general cultural osmosis, I’m guessing this one is more in line with his sensibilities than Marriage Story was, though I obviously don’t know for sure. But the swift monotone dialogue, the fastidious precision of word choice, and the mix of the absurd and the mundane feel too particular to be a one-off style for this film.
It was only on occasion that I found myself fully on board with the movie. The actual toxic event is probably the section of the film that works best for me. I feel here like I best understand the thesis and what things are building toward, and I get into the rhythm of the formal-but-urgent chemistry between the family. The further we get out from the toxic event, though, the more my attention strains, and it’s more difficult for me to keep track of where we’re going.
Leading the film is Adam Driver as Jack. A renowned expert on Hitler, the professor makes up for his shabby appearance with the intensity of his lectures. Jack likes to be on top of everything, and when the toxic event hits, he vainly tries to project confidence to his worried wife and jumpy kids. Driver goes all in on this performance as a lost man grasping for reason. Greta Gerwig plays Babette with a sad sort of distracted sweetness; she always has a sense that she’s wondering if she left the oven on. I don’t really jibe with everywhere the film takes her, but Gerwig plays it well. I’m not familiar with any of the actors playing the kids, but all of them fit nicely into the film’s style—I especially like Sam Nivola as the knowledgeable Heinrich. The movie also features Don Cheadle as a professor friend of Jack’s, and we get brief appearances from Jodie Turner-Smith, SNL’s Chloe Fineman, and Barbara Sukowa, who I loved as Jones on 12 Monkeys.
Warnings
Language, scenes of violence (including references to rape,) sexual references, smoking, and thematic elements.
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