Where'd You Go, Bernadette Review
PG-13: Some strong language and drug material
Run Time: 1 Hour and 42 Minutes
Studios: Annapurna Pictures, Color Force
Director: Richard Linklater | Screenwriters: Richard Linklater, Holly Gent, Vincent Palmo Jr.
Cast: Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Kristen Wiig, Emma Nelson, James Urbaniak, Judy Greer, Troian Bellisario, Zoë Chao, Laurence Fishburne
Release Date: August 16, 2019
Based on the runaway bestseller, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is an inspiring comedy about Bernadette Fox (Academy Award winner Cate Blanchett), a loving mom who becomes compelled to reconnect with her creative passions after years of sacrificing herself for her family. Bernadette's leap of faith takes her on an epic adventure that jump-starts her life and leads to her triumphant rediscovery.
Lately, famed director Richard Linklater has been on this leisure pursuit of book adaptations. While he has co-written original features like Boyhood, After Midnight, and Everybody Wants Some, his other features this decade have been book-to-film adaptations. One of my personal favorites was Bernie, the 2012 dark comedy with Jack Black playing a Texan serial killer. His latest release before Bernadette was an adequate drama titled Last Flag Flying starring Steve Carrell, Laurence Fishbourne, and Bryan Cranston. Now, Richard Linklater has returned with another film adaptation based on a beloved bestseller. Conceptually, Where’d You Go, Bernadette seems like something out of left field for Linklater due to its outlandish premise, but you must remember that this is the same dude who made this 2003 classic:
If Richard Linklater — the man of subtle indie cinema that hipsters everywhere love — can do something as charming as School of Rock, then he can just about do anything he sets his mind to… with the exception of this uneven, half-assed mess of a comedy that is endearing for a good 30 minutes and then plows itself into a brick wall.
Based on the book of the same name by Maria Semple, Bernadette Fox leads a stable and uneventful, yet very secluded, life. She has it all: she’s a mid-to-high class woman living in an enormous house in the muggy city of Seattle. She’s the wife of a Microsoft tech genius named Elgin and the mother of a straight-A daughter named Bee who narrates the story that’s being presented. Back in the day, Fox was an accomplished architect who put everything in her life on hold after one minor failure, which led her to feel like a disgraced outcast when it came to her passion. 20 years later, feeling a bit of banality to her life revolving around drug prescription overdoses, social anxiety, and excessive depression, she takes it upon herself to disappear in the middle of an intervention and it’s up to her family to find her.
Some movies have undeniably weak narratives that feature a central character that you undoubtedly love. Where’d You Go, Bernadette is a primary example of this. What Linklater succeeds at through the screenplay — which he co-wrote along with Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr. — is establishing the lead herself. Throughout the majority of the story I found myself personally residing with Bernadette and her problematic lifestyle where she puts on a cynical, eccentric exterior around the people she loves, but internally when she doesn’t have to put on a show, she’s drowned in exhaustion and depression leading her to seek isolation. Bernadette is completely introverted to the extent that whenever she needs to leave the house she dresses in incognito mode, bearing shades and a bonnet, defining the look of the character on the book’s cover. There’s also the chance of her being recognized due to her past work as an architect, so when she has to socially interact with others, she completely shuts down and doesn’t have much to say. It’s a relatable aspect that maaaaany introverts can attest to no matter what level of recognizable they are at. Blanchett’s charismatic performance also benefits the exhibition of this fleshed-out character’s personality.
Now, while Bernadette is a very likable character who just can’t seem to get her shit together due to her constant neglect of her own self-care (something I personally relate to), the narrative she’s in is so inconsequential. If you couldn’t find a definite tone for what this movie was trying to be from the two completely different trailers released, don’t worry because Linklater is incapable of doing so as well. The film features mature topics such as depression, marital problems, and drug abuse, yet it’s wrapped in an uneven dramatic comedy that is not actually funny and barely has the sufficient dialogue to ever get dramatic. Whenever there is an interesting thread that can be explored, Linklater pivots away to deliver quirky comedy, stripping away the absurdity of the dramatic elements in the source material. I read an entire plot synopsis of the source material to see if there were elements left out, and believe me, they left out a lot. The more interesting plot elements that are so vastly enticing, such as the affair between Elgin and Soo-Lin Lee-Segal (one of Elgin’s coworkers), is completely left out, diminishing any sort of stakes or levity from Elgin and Bernadette’s marital issues. It’s kind of disrespectful to author Maria Semple how much Linklater, Gent, and Palmo Jr. left out of the film. What you get instead is a story about a family in a non-urgent crisis that gets easily resolved by money. I kid you not.
What makes it worse are the characters around her, who feel like they were written for different movies. Billy Crudup portrays Elgin, who feels distant from his wife due to him being a workaholic and not being very present for her and his daughter. Sound familiar? Then, you have Emma Nelson who portrays Bee, the daughter who speaks way too maturely for her age and is set to attend boarding school, but her undying love for her mom powers her through everything and she rebels against her elders. Sound familiar? The respective actors are good whenever they are on screen with Blanchett, who steals the show and carries a lot of weight, but when the narrative makes them come together to conclude whatever minuscule thread they have in their subplot which is convenient to the plot that holds no specific or inconsequential weight at all, their performances are weak mostly due to the poor material they’re given as their conversations often feel one-sided.
The only supporting cast member who makes a valiant impression is Kristen Wiig who plays Audrey, the nosy, over-the-top, gossipy neighbor. She’s the only actress who’s expressing her versatility by deviating from her natural silly self. She plays a shallow mom that is a one-note character by all means, but Wiig delivers a surprising turnout. There is a scene between her and Blanchett where she goes off in frustration and by God, she runs circles around her.
I thoroughly enjoyed this film for a good thirty minutes, but once it dove into Bernadette’s disappearance the mediocrity started to seep through. Its narrative may be told in an unconventional light, but you expect a fun, wild journey, not just a saccharine and lazy family drama where nothing of significance happens. By the time she disappears, there’s only twenty minutes left in the run time. By the time the family comes together with no consequential payoff whatsoever, the movie just abruptly ends, leaving a sour and underwhelming taste in your mouth, which is the last thing anyone would want from Richard Linklater.
It’s depressing that August is literally the dumping ground for incomplete, underdeveloped movies, but it’s just painful that one of those underdeveloped movies would be a Linklater feature.
Rating: 2.5/5 | 50%
