Where'd You Go, Bernadette

[StevePulaski]

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

Cate Blanchett.

Rating: ★★

Following films like Blue Jasmine and Carol, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is another entry in the "Depressed Cate Blanchett Cinematic Universe," but a very disappointing one at that. Based on Maria Semple's popular novel of the same name, the film squanders thought-provoking observations about mental health and anhedonia and ultimately feels detached from reality. Characters speak like they're from another planet, on top of having luxurious lives and palatial estates most of us could only dream to have, and become aggressively unpleasant the more time we spend with them over 98 long minutes.

The film is a rare miss from the almighty Richard Linklater, one of the most consistent and versatile American filmmakers working today. From his breezy debut Slacker, which paved the way for films like Dazed and Confused and Everybody Wants Some!!, to more dramatic and polished efforts such as Bernie and Me and Orson Welles, Linklater has segued from one strong project to the next. He has proven to be a director who not only can tell an engaging story but coach his actors in such a way to get the best performances out of them. This makes Where'd You Go, Bernadette feel moreso like a miscalculation.

The film is pieced together like a video-essay with an abundance of narration and "interviews" with supporting characters ostensibly to compliment the epistolary structure of its source material. We focus on the plight of Bernadette Fox (Blanchett), a once rising star in the realm of architecture whose setbacks and unpreparedness for motherhood made her an agoraphobic wreck. She spends most of her days tucked away in a stately mansion in Seattle — so aesthetically different from the other homes in the subdivision that it might as well be Dracula's mansion — with her husband Elgie (Billy Crudup) and their precocious young daughter Bee (Emma Nelson). Bernadette is doing about as well as she can until Bee asks her parents for a trip to Antarctica. The thought of taking a trip across the world frightens the reclusive architect, who feels her self-worth and productivity dip so badly that she sets out on a journey predicated upon rediscovering herself — a move that leaves her family in the dark about her whereabouts.

Bernadette's closest companion is the unseen Manjula, a personal assistant in India, to whom she requests remember all the important information she's too scatterbrained to keep in mind. Her misanthropic nature greatly upsets Audrey Griffin (Kristen Wiig), the perfect PTA mother whose child is a friend of Bee's, despite Audrey and most of the mothers in the neighborhood looking at Bernadette as a social pariah. There's enjoyment to be had in both of these subplots, but the scenes of Bernadette rattling off a list of demands baked into her ramblings about her current situation feel like exposition-dumps that drone on as they hit the three minute mark. Moreover, where thoughtfully written, intellectually combative banter could exist between Bernadette and Audrey, their dialog feels counterproductive to making Bernadette likable. If someone as disapproving and aloof as Bernadette moved into your neighborhood, you probably wouldn't have a kind word to say about her either.

Linklater and co-writers Holly Gent and Vince Palmo have a difficult time striking the appropriate tone for this material from the jump. Bernadette clearly has psychological problems not easy to discern, but the film juxtaposes her incompetence with daily chores and her burdening feeling of helplessness in a rocky manner. We go from chuckling or rolling our eyes at Bernadette's foibles to feeling unsure of how to view her when the film embraces a more dramatic tone. This uneven shift makes it harder to sympathize with Bernadette despite her struggles. Compounding this is her lavish lifestyle and her ability to drop all responsibilities with ease — something most of us cannot readily do in our lives — in search of some kind of awakening coming off as a fantastical idea to buy into. Forget the fact that Bernadette's disappearance comes way too late in the film (over an hour in) to be depicted with any kind of realism and depth. The sheer idea of it is other-worldly for so many to grasp.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette plays like the inferior version of Woody Allen's Blue Jasmine, which starred Blanchett as a socialite whose life of excess and personal demons caught up with her in a monumental way, forcing her to move in with her sister. There were stronger moments of character-building in that film, and it ultimately didn't suffer from the same mood swings and tonal shifts as Linklater's. The dialog in Where'd You Go, Bernadette can be grating, especially in scenes involving Elgie and Bee, whose heart-to-heart conversations feel like the kind of predictable pablum that belongs in your average Full House rerun. It struggles to humanize difficult people, especially Bernadette, which makes them all the more difficult to root for when the narrative turns to its lead navigating a grand midlife crisis.

Where'd You Go, Bernadette's shortcomings are somewhat surprising because personal crises have been a low-key theme in many of Linklater's previous works. Films like Slacker, Boyhood, and the acclaimed Before trilogy (even Link's sadly overlooked Last Flag Flying from 2017) all had characters experiencing some sort of ennui; many were asking themselves "if I am here, where do I/we go next?" There came a point, relatively early on, watching this film that I not only didn't know where the film would go next, but I also grew weary and less interested, which is not the feeling you like washing over you during a human-centric dramedy.

Starring: Cate Blanchett, Billy Crudup, Emma Nelson, Kristen Wiig, Judy Greer, and Laurence Fishburne. Directed by: Richard Linklater.