Film is witness to out-of-control life
WHERE’D YOU GO, BERNADETTE RICHARD Linklater’s latest film Where’d You Go, Bernadette is an adaptation of a best-selling novel by Maria Semple which has Cate Blanchett as the title character.
She’s an architect, an award-winning one with iconic buildings in California to her name, but hasn’t worked in twenty years.
Now living in Seattle with husband Elgie (Billy Crudup) and daughter Bee (Emma Nelson) she’s arrogant, antisocial and often downright rude.
They live in a crumbling mansion on the top of a hill which leaks and is badly in need of renovation.
She has contempt for her neighbour Audrey (Kristen Wiig) and her main occupation seems to be picking up her daughter from school.
An end-of-school trip for the three of them to Antarctica is planned but Bernadette only thinks of how she can get out of it.
She’s constantly barking orders to a Delhi-based online personal assistant.
When Bernadette’s selfishness and misanthropy seem to be getting out of control leading to a neighbourhood disaster, Elgie calls in psychiatrist Janelle Kurtz (Judy Greer) and an old colleague Paul Jellinek (Laurance Fishburne) which prompts drastic action on the part of our central character.
Richard Linklater is a fine filmmaker, usually grounding his films in a touching reality.
With this highly dramatic and ultimately sentimental story he’s created a character, embodied by Cate Blanchett, that is brittle and even slightly unlikeable.
The revelation of the cause of her neuroses does help explain her distinctly anti-social behaviour.
The one who emerges from this film the most believably is young Emma Nelson as Bee - she’s really impressive - and it is Bernadette’s relationship with her daughter that is the most touching.
It’s a strange film but at the same time it engages you as you witness the life of this woman spinning out of her control.
Notably, it’s the first major feature to have been partly filmed in Antarctica.