Film Review—White Noise: A Wake-Up Examination of Lethal Internal and External Challenges

Vital Topics: Social Work and Film

by SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD

     The 2022 film White Noise, written and directed by Noah Baumbach, is billed as a comedy-drama. But make no mistake: Baumbach’s achievement is a timely, deadly serious, and I believe brilliant depiction of life—one where Baumbach digs out closely guarded intimate fears and denied external realities. Like life itself, the film moves so quickly at certain points that the viewer feels breathless. At other times, it seems to drag interminably. 

     Yes, there are some scenes that produce smiles (not primarily because they are funny, but because they hit home). There are giggle-chuckles that are due to “absurdities’—steroid manifestations—of life truths. They are the blown up, exaggerated mirror images of struggles we know well about our family and friends, our clients, our world, ourselves. This film illuminates a social worker’s challenge: Until we face ourselves and what complex societal challenges ask of us, we cannot understand our clients. We will be unable to hear what they are trying to tell us. 

     White Noise is the first of Baumbach’s films that is based on another artist’s work. It was adapted from the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo, an absurdist, satirical commentary on the materialism and descent of societal values marking the Reagan presidential years. The film highlights the continuation of this descent and the selfish, self-serving priorities of many of our supposed “best and brightest,” as well as our own as we cope with our day-to-day lives. In doing so, White Noise begs the question of our preparedness for present looming health and political dangers.

     The plot centers on a universal fear—the fear of dying--which in essence involves the challenges involved in growing up and facing reality. Examination is presented in three consecutive, flowing segments: an overview of the life of a modern family, an examination of external dangers confronting us all, and a highly exaggerated exposure of vulnerabilities in one’s inner world and how this plays out in our relationships.

     Exaggeration is designed to keep us stunned, glued to the screen, laughing at absurdity. Laughter subsides as we realize we are viewing a mirror into ourselves. In the film’s culmination, Baumbach and his gifted ensemble illuminate the truths social workers face daily, hourly, with our clients and in ourselves. 

     As in other reviews, discussion of themes in White Noise, which takes us back in time to 1984, will be the only times plot line is revealed. I will not address the final moments of the film, which initially startle, but with thought offer closure to the survival prescription offered in White Noise.

Segment One, an Overview — Segment Two, “An Airborne Toxic Event” 

     Professor Jack (known as the imposing J.A.K. on campus) Gladney (Adam Driver) is the founder of the Department of Hitler Studies at Ohio’s College-on-the-Hill. We are introduced to out-of-touch academic colleagues, most notably his close friend Murray (Don Cheadle), a professor of American culture, whose concentration is car crashes. Murray wishes to expand his academic standing through Elvis Studies. Later, in a society brimming with danger, we watch the rapt attention that captivated academics and their students offer Murray and Jack’s improvised duet examining the death wishes of Elvis and Hitler. 

     Initially, the charming blending of Jack’s very modern family seems the stuff dreams are made of.  Jack finally got it right, evidenced by his devoted, attentive fourth wife, Babette Gladney (Greta Gerwig), who teaches life skills to the “elderly and frail.” Their blended family consists of Heinrich (Sam Nivola) and Steffie (May Nivola), from two of Jack’s previous marriages; Denise (Raffey Cassidy), from Babette’s former marriage; and Wilder, a child they have conceived together. They live in a midtown house near campus (wait until you see its homey expanse) on a street that screams financial security.      

     But all is not as it seems. Jack feels shame and inadequacy as he preps for a speech he will be making at an upcoming conference. Babette, who has chosen work where her deepest fears are activated, believes that her memory is failing. Her daughter Denise finds evidence of discarded containers of a prescription not found in any medical protocols. During the couple’s intimate moments, they face a traumatic reality: one of them will die before the other. 

     As these concerns unfold, Heinrich studies unaddressed environmental chaos he knows will eventually lead to disasters. Soon after, a chemical waste accident causes the family to flee their home, seeking shelter—a prescient warning of the real-life train derailment and chemical spill in East Palestine, Ohio, on February 3, 2023, just over a month after the Netflix release of the film.

Segment Three, Examined Intimacy and Culmination

     We are offered a more intimate examination of Babette and Jack, where fears are closely examined and how far each will go to free themselves of their overwhelming dread of death (and relatedly, the fear of passing years, aging, and no longer being relevant) that permeates lives. We also see that two of their children, Denise and Heinrich, have more confidence, awareness, and common sense than they do. (Perhaps Baumbach is also saying that this confidence is easier for them, as thankfully, the majority of the young do not face the terror of impending death.)  

     The culmination of White Noise reminds me of Dante’s Inferno with an important caveat. Although a seemingly religious healing setting is introduced, acknowledged religious tenets are rejected. As pure hell is faced, allusions are trashed. In this segment, pay close attention to thoughts expressed in the brilliant performance of Barbara Sukowa as Sister Hermann Marie. 

     In the earlier segments, ”white noise” is both the universal fear of death and our lethal environmental challenges. In the concluding segments of the film, the definition of ”white noise” and its dangers is crystalized and enhanced. White noise is both an internal and external challenge. It embodies the meaningless, myriad activities and superficial behaviors we adopt to defend against the realities of aging, loss, and death. It is also the looming, inevitable health and political dangers that will overwhelm and destroy our lives, and all we value if, together, we do not confront what must be seen and addressed with reason, civility, and bravery. 

     White Noise reminds us of what is affirmed in the lives of all social workers, whatever our concentration: Despite the gravest of obstacles, the endurance and survival of individuals and all we hold dear lies in looking beyond ourselves—and with clarity—at what is essential for a fulfilling life, facing what must be faced, and, because each of us is vulnerable, caring for and protecting each other.

SaraKay Smullens, MSW, LCSW, DCSW, CGP, CFLE, BCD, whose private and pro bono clinical social work practice is in Philadelphia, is a certified group psychotherapist and family life educator. She is a recipient of the Lifetime Achievement Award (2004) and the Social Worker of the Year (2018) from the Pennsylvania chapter of NASW, and the 2013 NASW Media Award for Best Article. In 2018, she was one of five graduates of the University of Pennsylvania School of Social Policy and Practice selected for the school’s inaugural Hall of Fame. SaraKay is the author of Burnout and Self-Care in Social Work (2nd Edition).