‘White Noise’ review

Christopher McHale
3 min readJan 4, 2023

Noah Baumbach unleashes our confused over-thinking mind on the unsuspecting world.

White Noise’ is brilliant.

Don Dellio’s 1985 postmodern novel was called “unadaptable.”

Why?

Because the novel shapeshifts like a chameleon taped to a kladiscope.

Life, my friend, is dominated by the cereal aisle and TV on one side, and scary mortality on the other. Good luck making sense of it.

The movie has that same hyper-active shape shifting rapid fire non sequitur craziness. Charlie Parker playing Looney Tunes. Alan Ginsberg playing Scrabble.

Part Woody Allen (irksome) part Chevy Chase (funny) part Wes Anderson (symmetry color whackos), part Hitchcock (suspense music) with a powerful dose of Speilburg (alien invasion).

How does this work in a film?

Well, it’s a glorious hot mess, tbh. If your brain is not wide-open and ready for this madness, forget it. It won’t work for you.

But if you love this book (I do) and these lines (lots lifted straight from page to script), and these incredible characters and scenes and riffs, this film totally gets into your head. Like being alone on a 3D IMAX carousel. It twists your mind as you reach for…

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Christopher McHale

Writer | Composer | Producer | Human | Christopher writes about creativity, culture, technology, music, writing. www.christophermchale.com