BEFORE: James Urbaniak carries over from "Wonderstruck". He's one of those actors who turns up again and again, if you're looking for him, that is. He's already been in two movies so far this year, so another two appearances guarantees him a spot in my annual countdown in December. Same goes for Judy Greer and David Paymer, and surprisingly, if I stick to my schedule, it looks like I'll be giving a shout-out to Johannes Haukur Johannesson, too. Oddly, I can't say the same about Cate Blanchett, who may finish the year with just two appearances - you just never know.
But Urbaniak's a lock - you may not even know who he is, but you've probably seen him in a bunch of things, possibly without being aware of it. He's racked up over 150 IMDB credits as an actor, across a wide variety of genres - animated movies, biopics, TV comedies, video games - versatility will get somebody pretty far in my book.
THE PLOT: A loving mom becomes compelled to reconnect with her creative passions after years of sacrificing for her family. Her leap of faith takes her on an epic adventure that jump-starts her life and leads to her triumphant rediscovery.
AFTER: SPOILER ALERT warning for "Where'd You Go, Bernadette" - turn back now if you haven't seen the film, because once again, it's impossible for me to discuss certain elements without revealing a bit too much, I suspect.
I didn't like the lead character, Bernadette, at first - to the extent where I wasn't sure if I was supposed to hate her, much like Richard McCreadie in "Greed". But this didn't seem like a satire of any kind, this seemed like a much more sincere story about a woman who once had a professional career as an architect, and gave it up for some reason. Her character had won a MacArthur "genius" grant and believed in using only local and repurposed/recycled materials, long before it was trendy.
The WHY of her career, WHY she withdrew from society is explained more and more as the film goes on, and the device that's used to tell this story is a film-within-a-film, a documentary on YouTube (she watches the first half, her daughter later watches the second half), which I suppose works as a narrative device - though I don't know many people who would watch a documentary about themself, that seems sort of narcissistic. From a story standpoint, the only person we should see watching a documentary about themself would be a character who had amnesia, and needed to recall details from their own life. Right? It makes more sense that the daughter would watch this, to learn aspects of her mother's career that she wasn't already aware of.
When we first meet her, she's something of a "Karen", which symbolically has become the name for the type of suburban white woman who finds fault with everyone around her - or is it just minorities that they don't like? Bernadette lives in suburban Seattle, and the area is full of well-meaning women with nothing better to do but enforce the local guidelines about how many blackberry bushes you can have in your backyard, or what time you can pull up to the school to pick up your daughter, but also they want to make sure that their kids know a few words in Swahili and are extrememly cosmopolitan, (as long as their kids don't date minorities, probably). But Bernadette has problems getting along with the "Karens", so that kind of makes her an uber-Karen, or a Queen Karen, maybe a "Bernadette" is what the "Karens" need to come along and put their attitudes in check.
Either way, it's become a problem that Bernadette can't get along with ANY of the neighbors (yet she doesn't realize that if she doesn't get along with anyone, the problem isn't everyone else, it's her) and her relationship with her husband is faltering, too, even if they're both unaware of it. He's got a position at Microsoft and is working on a device that will take dictation straight from a person's thoughts, no need for problematic texting or typing, or even saying words any more! Because who has that kind of time? Note: I think this device is not only impossible to invent, it's a very dangerous one - who wants their thoughts to be put directly into an e-mail that could accidentally get sent out? I know there are a couple toys on the market that seem to function on the power of thought, but I kind of like the way things are right now, with typing texts, it's really not that much work.
Bernadette's got other problems, because she's doing a lot of dictation herself, sending instructions to her assistant, Manjula, who takes care of everything for her, from ordering clothes for the family's planned trip to Antarctica, to building a giant sign instructing all the local "gnats" (Karens) to keep off of her property. Bernadette doesn't know it, but her assistant claims to be working out of a call center in India, only that's not the case. This is how our country may eventually go down, with foreign agents creating apps and assistants to make our life easier, only they're really stealing all of the private data, passwords and bank information from our phones. Bernadette's living a life of privilege, but very soon it's going to come crashing down.
Once the dominoes start to fall, her husband feels the need to stage a sort of intervention, and who's to say that he's wrong? Bernadette has put all of her medications together into one big, unlabelled candy jar (hey, that could at least make life more interesting), and he's found her asleep on a bench at the local pharmacy, after she had her virtual assistant order her seasick medication for the upcoming trip. Meanwhile, one of the "Karen gnats" is now working as a Microsoft admin for her husband, and Bernadette's convinced herself this is the beginning of the end for their marriage - before long that assistant's going to be his mistress, and perhaps Bernadette's seeing just a few steps too far into the future, but really, that's when this sort of thing needs to be addressed, before the damage is done.
In the middle of the intervention, when her husband, prospective therapist, future "other woman" and someone from the FBI have her attention, Bernadette does what she does best, she escapes. This is what she did 20 years previous after a career setback, she quit the game. What else is there to do? Some people probably live their lives like this, as soon as things start to not go their way, burn it all to the ground and move on. Maybe it's healthier this way, I don't know. But all you need to know is that she leaves, and her husband adopts a "Eh, maybe she'll come back?" attitude, and this is telling. Her daughter eventually figures out where she's gone, and they take off after her.
It's not really a spoiler, because the first thing we see in the film is where Bernadette has gone - she's taken that trip to Antarctica. Still, it's a weird twist - someplace most people wouldn't even go on a dare, but it's there she finds herself, and also where she "finds" herself again. All you really need to know is that her creative mind has FINALLY started up again (we do see some evidence of the ways she's been renovating and decorating the family's home, so really, perhaps it never left) and through a large, complicated set of extraordinary circumstances, Bernadette is at one point seriously considering spending more time in Antarctica, for career reasons.
NITPICK POINT: This is a pet peeve of mine, but many people, including the majority of the cast of this film, end up mispronouncing the word "Antarctica". It's supposed to be Ant-ARK-tick-a, but some people say "Ant-ART-tick-a", ignoring the first "C", and that's just wrong wrong wrong. Yet those same people will say "ARK-tic" referring to the northern part of the globe. How can somebody correctly pronounce "Arctic" and not "Antarctica"? This drives me crazy. Cate Blanchett correctly included the first "K" sound more often than anyone else here, so she's to be commended - the rest of you all need English lessons. And it was the director's job to make sure all the actors knew how to say it, so that's a fail for him, too. FUN FACT: the name "Arctic" comes from the Greek word "artikos", meaning "near the bear", probably a reference to the constellations of Ursa Major and Ursa Minor, therefore "antarctic" means "the opposite of the Arctic", by extension "opposite of the north" and therefore "not near the bear". Appropriately, there are polar bears in the Arctic, but not in Antarctica.
How is this film perfect for the pandemic, in addition to knocking "Karen" culture? Well, according to this film, spending an extended period of time at the South Pole requires a certain kind of person, somebody who's determined, rugged, and willing to work alone, accomplish tasks as an individual. Also, the station manager states that the people who do best there are somewhat anti-social, and Bernadette fits that profile quite nicely. It's like she was born for the job. And this kind of reminds me about my feelings at the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, when I found out that I'd have to spend a couple months at home, cancel all social engagements, and avoid contact with other people, including the majority of my friends. Umm, wait, what's the downside, exactly? I can work just a few hours each day, not leave the house for a week, and binge-watch the shows I've missed over the last couple of years? Sign me up. Which makes me think that the whole lockdown was pitched to America all wrong - if the government announcements had just used words like "stay-cation" and "furlough" instead of "lockdown" and "quarantine", I think more people would have been on-board from the start. Hey, everybody, remember how you've been saying you wish you could spend more time with your family? And single people, you know that book or screenplay you're always saying you're going to write, but you can never seem to find the time? Well, guess what...
The weird movies keep on coming this year, and this one's no exception - it's getting to the point where nothing really surprises me any more. I'm not even sure if this is just a clear indicator of just how far a film has to go these days to try to rise above a crowded field, or maybe it's just that collectively we've been making movies for well over a century now, and it feels like every other story has been done before in some fashion, so that just leaves us with the strange ones that haven't been told before. In some sense, weird is good, because weird is also original, weird is different, weird is unique. So now if I see a film that isn't weird in some way, that seems kind of old hat - like, haven't I seen this story before a few times now? It almost feels like Richard Linklater tried to make a Wes Anderson film, do you know what I mean? It's got that odd, earnest tone that reminds me a little bit of both "Moonrise Kingdom" and "The Life Aquatic of Steve Zissou", if that makes any sense.
The biggest problem here, in my opinion, is using some really good actors in a very small way, just as people interviewed in the film-within-the-film, the documentary about Bernadette's career. I'm just going to say it, Megan Mullally and Steve Zahn were criminally underused in that regard. Also, despite what it looks like, that's NOT Harry Shearer in disguise as the weird British game-show producer. Bottom line, this film didn't really make waves at the box office, or get any major nominations except for one Golden Globe nom, but in this new pandemic world, with so many creative people out there wondering how to move themselves forward after a fallow period, I say it's worth a look. Check it out on Hulu or rent it on the other streaming services if you can.
Also starring Cate Blanchett (last heard in "How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World"), Billy Crudup (last seen in "20th Century Women"), Emma Nelson, Kristen Wiig (last seen in "Welcome to Me"), Judy Greer (last seen in "The 15:17 to Paris"), Troian Bellisario, Zoe Chao, Laurence Fishburne (last seen in "John Wick: Chapter 3 - Parabellum"), Claudia Doumit, Katelyn Statton, David Paymer (last seen in "In Good Company"), Steve Zahn (last seen in "Captain Fantastic"), Megan Mullally (last seen in "Lemon"), Richard Robichaux (last seen in "Ocean's 8"), Kate Burton (last seen in "127 Hours"), Johannes Haukur Johannesson (last seen in "The Good Liar"), Kathryn Feeney, Bruce Curtis.
RATING: 6 out of 10 repurposed pairs of bifocals
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