Where’d You Go, Bernadette ★★½
IT’S hard to like a film when the central character is so annoying.
I know there is more to Where’d You Go, Bernadette and many people will enjoy it, but it was an obstacle I just couldn’t find an enjoyable way around.
This 2019 comedy-drama is directed and co-written by Richard Linklater from a novel by Maria Semple.
I have generally been indifferent to Linklater whose films, including Dazed and Confused and the ‘Before Sunrise’ trilogy, are beloved by many.
Without a doubt, Boyhood from 2014 is his best film, incisive and authentic. But I couldn’t stand 2016’s Everybody Wants Some. The antics of the college jocks, that Linklater seemed to find endearing and nostalgic, were bullying and tiresome and made for one of my worst cinema experiences in recent years.
I started to have the same sinking feeling a half hour or so into Where’d You Go, Bernadette which tells the story of a woman struggling to overcome her addictions to reconnect with family and find her inner peace and direction.
She’s played by Cate Blanchett and that’s my second issue. Blanchett is an exceptional actress but in Linklater’s hands I think she is given too much freedom with the character, delivering a flamboyant performance more suited to the stage than film.
We get a lot of funny-crazy and eccentric Bernadette but much less of her tortured, less confident side, creating an imbalance that’s hard for the audience to truly embrace.
Take one particular scene. Her husband Elgie (Billy Crudup) is walking along a busy Chicago street with colleagues on their way to a meeting. It’s the middle of the day and suddenly from a department store window he sees Bernadette asleep on a couch.
The ensuing moments should involve a range of emotions on behalf of characters and audience, but it’s just ultimately played for a laugh that falls flat.
Kristen Wiig plays Bernadette’s daily nemesis Audrey, a hippy, neighbourhood mum and her exact opposite, and their conflicts provide most of the film’s humour.
As the story progresses, the coincidences build up along with some suspensions of disbelief that I just couldn’t take, particularly in the final, snow-bound act.
Like the jocks in Everybody Wants Some, Linklater seems to want to tell stories about people and circumstances far removed from the average person, well, certainly myself.
Here there is too much emphasis on the ‘problems’ of the privileged who are terribly saddled by the weight of their own creative talent.
When Linklater does attempt to contrast this with other, more universal issues, they fail to land with any real conviction.
Where’d You Go, Bernadette is quirky and occasionally funny, but it just wasn’t for me.