'White Noise' on Netflix plunges into the absurdity of modern life (in the 1980s)

Don DeLillo’s brilliant novel “White Noise” is one of those books that people said was unfilmable.

That’s obviously not true, because Noah Baumbach went out and did it. And he did a pretty good job of it, too, with appealingly oddball performances from frequent collaborators Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig, Baumbach’s real-life partner.

It’s tempting to say that if you don’t read the book first the movie won’t make as much sense, but I’ve read the novel twice and I’m still trying to piece everything together.

Maybe that’s a “me” thing, as they say. But even if some of the details come together more theoretically than concretely, the film is still an enjoyable exercise in … well, a lot of things. And Baumbach appears to be having a ball.

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Baumbach captures the 1980s flawlessly

It’s the 1980s — the period details are meticulous — and Jack (Driver) is a Hitler studies professor at the College on the Hill, having created the curriculum himself. (He doesn’t actually speak German so he has to take secret lessons, which is a minor bit in the film but a running joke in the novel.)

Jack has been married several times, as has his current wife Babette (Gerwig), who everyone calls Baba. They have a blended family — she has two children from a previous marriage, he has one and they have a toddler of their own.

Domestic life is one long set piece, with interlocking dialogue as if they kids were starring in a junior version of a Robert Altman film. They spout random facts, ask inane questions and have a remarkably low average for getting things right.

“The family is the cradle of the world’s misinformation,” Jack muses to himself one morning over breakfast.

The scenes set at the college are goofball takedowns of academia, each faculty member seemingly more banal than the last. The film begins, in fact, with Murray (Don Cheadle) teaching a class about the meaning of car crashes in American film.

Murray wants to branch out, to do for Elvis what Jack has done for Hitler — create an entire curriculum around him. He asks Jack to sit in on a lecture, which turns into an amazing call-and-response kind of performance, with Jack eventually growing rhapsodic, the class (and Murray) entranced.

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The Airborne Toxic Event drives the middle portion of the film, as it did the novel

Later there is an accident, a toxic spill, in the town. Authorities christen it a Toxic Airborne Event (yes, the band took its name from the novel). This forms the centerpiece of the film, as Jack and Baba and the kids evacuate and face one bureaucratic absurdity after another. (Emergency responders are calling it a simulated event, because they never got to train for a real one. So they figure they will use the real one to take care of their training.)

There is a fantastic scene in which the family station wagon veers into a river, with Jack trying to steer between the rocks. As with the Driver-Cheadle classroom face-off, Baumbach turns the ridiculous into something kind of wonderful.

Throughout the film Baba pops pills, which she claims are Life Savers. This will fuel the last act of the film, which becomes a kind of medical mystery, infused with betrayal, Jack and Baba’s fear of death and increasingly weird scenarios. A German nun (Barbara Sukowa) offers some hard truths and unusual beliefs about, well, belief.

The actors play it straight, with a dash of arch awareness. To play it any other way wouldn’t work, and it’s a tricky proposition even then.

It’s a different experience from the book — not as rich, not as rewarding — with a different feel to the social commentary. DeLillo’s novel is a singular work. But Baumbach’s “White Noise” is worthwhile in its own way. After all, you can’t get a perfectly choreographed goofball production number set to LCD Soundsystem in the neon aisles of the A&P in a novel.

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'White Noise' 4 stars

Director: Noah Baumbach.

Cast: Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, Don Cheadle.

Rating: R for brief violence and language.

Note: Streaming on Netflix on Dec. 30.

Reach Goodykoontz at bill.goodykoontz@arizonarepublic.com. Facebook: facebook.com/GoodyOnFilm. Twitter: @goodyk.

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This article originally appeared on Arizona Republic: Adam Driver nails the absurdities of 'White Noise' on Netflix