Wilson Webb / Netflix via AP
Noah Baumbach’s new adaptation of Don Delillo’s White Noise is streaming on netflix. I’d been looking forward to it for a long time, and it more than lived up to my expectations.
A classic absurdist study of the postmodern moment, brilliantly rendered. The distinctive Delillo dialog style is a treat for fans and maybe an acquired taste. The film does some things even better than the book – the overlapping cacaphony of family chatter, for example. I think the adaptation makes some of the limitations of the source material more apparent, as well: the scene where Jack and Murray give simultaneous circling, grandstanding lectures on Elvis and Hitler’s relationships with their mothers was always silly, but watching it play out on film is extra unconvincing.
I loved the end credits, which interperet a supermarket through dance. A really beautiful blend of conventional pop dancing and stoned mysticism.