What I'm trying to get at is that Richard Linklater
is in that Woody Allen category of directors who you remember for the success,
you forget about the failures, and makes a lot less money than you realize.
There are many reasons for this. He takes big swings. He can be swayed by his
desire to work with specific actors. Often, it seems like he just enjoys the
challenge of a hard movie.
Where'd You Go, Bernadette falls under the "challenge" category (although
the chance to direct Cate Blanchett certainly helped as well, I'm sure). It's
based on a book of the same name. It's about Bernadette Fox (Cate Blanchett), a
wealthy housewife who used to be a visionary architect. After an infamous event
with her most famous building, she stops working for 20 years and puts all her
focus into raising her daughter. Now 14, her daughter (Emma Nelson), wants to
go on a family trip to Antarctica. Oh yeah, Bernadette's husband (Billy Crudup)
is a tech millionaire so this family is obsenely wealthy to the point where
trips to Antarctica are a reasonable this to ask for. In Bernadette's relative
isolation, she's become a nuisance to the other mothers at school, her next
door neighbor (Kristen Wiig) in particular. So, she doesn't really want to go on
this Antarctica trip, she's distant from her husband, she's probably depressed,
she's a genius forcing herself not to express it, and there's this whole mess
with the FBI. It's a movie of many ill-fitting parts. Eventually, it does all
lead her to Antarctica, where she goes to rediscover herself, I guess.
My understanding is that they had a lot of trouble
in pre-production adapting the book into a screenplay, and I believe that. Books
tend to have much more plot than movies. Adapting books to movies is often
about figuring out who parts of the book can be cut out without removing the
soul of it. The more idiosyncratic the book, the more ill-fitting the parts of
the movie are. And that's when you most often hear insufferable people making
the redundant point that "the book was better"*. I know nothing about
this book, but I'm going to guess that all the intersecting story lines had more
of a chance to breathe in it. The movie has a checklist feeling of different
parts that it had to include.
*Of course the book was better. It was written as a
book. That's how it tends to work. That's also why novelizations of movies tend
to not be as good or TV shows made into movies lose something in translation.
Don't say "the book was better". That's just a backdoor brag way of
saying "I read the book". Instead, say something substantive like
"I didn't care for that parts of the book it left out" or "they
had trouble translating the authorial voice to the movie". You'll still
sound a little full of yourself, but at least you'll be adding something to the
conversation.
Linklater is at his strongest when his movie rely
the least on plot. Dazed & Confused and Everybody Want's Some!!
are almost directionless hang-out movies. Boyhood has a loose structure,
not really a plot. The Before movies and Last Flag Flying are
basically movies about the discussions people have when moving from point A to
point B. Any time that Where'd You Go, Bernadette ignores the plot and
is just about the people it's great. Cate Blanchett has a distinct and
different relationship with everyone in the movie. I love the scenes with her
daughter - the one person she refuses to be cynical about. Blanchett is prickly
and performative is a way that you see right through but not past. Every scene
that she has with another person is interesting, even if it's just Laurence
Fishburne listening to her rant. I like Bernadette's character arc a lot, even
though I didn't care for the plot machinations involved.
Overall, I did like Where'd You Go, Bernadette,
but I wish it could've been stripped down even more. The only reason it's over
2 hours long is to fit in the plot and the plot is the least important part.
See it for Blanchett and the people who Blanchett talks to. Then again, can't
that be said about all her movies?
Side Thought: I have to give the movie extra-"show don't
tell" points. I actually believe that Bernadette Fox could be a famous
architect. The different projects of hers look like great architecture (to my
untrained eye, at least). Even her house, which she almost purposely lets fall
apart, has stylistic flourishes in it, like she couldn't help herself.
Verdict:
Weakly Recommend
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