It might be the final Netflix movie of 2022, but it seems that the streamer won’t be going out on a high note with White Noise.
This adaptation of Don DeLillo’s novel from director Noah Baumbach — with a cast that includes Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle — hits Netflix on December 30. And while you might assume the streaming giant would save its best for last on the calendar, the reviews for this new Netflix film that have come in from critics and fans so far suggest otherwise.
New Netflix movie White Noise
Ahead of its streaming debut, White Noise currently has a pretty middling 63% critics’ score on Rotten Tomatoes, but a “rotten” 56% audience score.
“White Noise may occasionally struggle with its allegedly unfilmable source material,” reads the Rotten Tomatoes critics’ consensus, “but Noah Baumbach succeeds in finding the humorous heart of its surprisingly timely story.”
Adds a Twitter user about the new Netflix movie: “Truly nuts how Noah Baumbach thought it would be a good idea to make a massive budget adaptation of White Noise and netflix decided to market it like it’s war of the worlds.”
‘It’s somehow got something to say about this country’
As Netflix’s logline for Baumbach’s adaptation of the novel explains, this is a story about a contemporary American family set against the backdrop of the mundanity of everyday life. The family grapples with love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world. For Baumbach, meanwhile, bringing White Noise to life was an extremely personal project.
“My father gave me the book when I was in college,” the director said in a Netflix interview.
“He was a novelist and loved movies and White Noise was kind of a synthesis of everything he was into. He passed away in 2019, and when I reread the book that same year, I was highly affected by it … I had the sense that no matter what was happening in the country, it would feel like it was written for that specific moment. If I had reread it after 9/11 or during the early days of the internet, or when Trump was elected — it’s somehow got something to say about this country that has always been true.”
