Where'd You Go, Bernadette (Richard Linklater, 2019)

[The Narrator Returns]

Richard Linklater's latest, Where'd You Go, Bernadette

[Mr Sheldrake]

Blanchette is a fascinating actor to behold in any range of emotion. Bernadette is a variation of Blue Jasmine- disappointment, dis-enchantment, frenzied disarray, with increasingly anti-social behavior. She has disavowed her career but her husband is a Microsoft biggie so no financial worries. One’s interest in the self-absorbed angst of rich white people is tested.

There are a couple of inspired passages (the intervention for one) but the film’s path towards re-enchantment is a tough sell in sorry times, and further diminished by the screenplay’s patness. This despite a near epiphany with Bernadette kayaking on a fjord off an Antarctic peninsula, a breathtakingly beautiful image unfortunately given away in the opening shot.

[Lemmy Caution]

I meant to watch this on a recent airplane trip and then skipped it. Will have to pick up the dvd. Blanchett is a great actress, imo.

[knives]

This was an absolute joy to me. Devastating in a way that I think kids could also appreciate. Blanchette is of course a powerhouse, but Crudup and the kid also kill it in such a sensitive fashion. The Time After Time sequence is so simple yet so powerful. I’ll admit I cried for some alchemical reason I’ll never be able to figure out.

The movie is a mess, but in a way that I think benefits the whole.