When it comes to directors I have a mixed reaction to, Richard Linklater will definitely come up as an example to my perspective.
Movies like “Dazed & Confused” and “Everybody Wants Some!!” (“Boyhood” excluded) I do find extremely overrated in terms of the premise-driven slice of life execution.
My favorite movies from him are the ones he doesn’t focus on a life-style perspective despite not seeing the Before trilogy. “School of Rock” and especially “Last Flag Flying” are amazing examples of superior Linklater.
This year, I was looking forward to “Where’d You Go Bernadette?” because it was not focusing on his usual slice-of-life film making style.
Then came the Rotten Tomatoes score a couple days before it came out and it shocked many critics on how really low his career status was.
Cate Blanchett plays a former building architect named Bernadette Fox, whom disappears within her family after forgetting that her daughter Bee (played by new-comer Emma Nelson) planned a vacation to Antarctica due to her getting a perfect report card from school.
Her neighbor Audrey Griffin (played by Kristen Wiig) is known for accusing Bernadette of running over her foot with Bernadette’s car and ruining her house. Both Audrey and Bernadette don’t have the best relationship together as the evidence shows.
Elgin Branch (played by Billy Crudup), notices that Bernadette has been going through weird behaviors lately and thinks she needs a psychiatrist to help her.
Unfortunately, Bernadette goes very far at the psychiatrist and disappears once again to shock her family. She is planning to go to Antarctica to not just put a guilt trip towards Elgin, but also has the urge to contact him and his daughter Bee as well. But do both people really know that she is still alive for real?
Richard Linklater is a director I do appreciate despite some of his works being overrated. He can portray a captivating story in his own personal language. I was of course looking forward to this movie from the trailers I have seen. With “Bernadette”, it unfortunately falls very flat compared to his other works.
People are saying that Cate Blanchett gives the best performance in the movie. I definitely think she is good, but it is mostly through the veins of the underrated Billy Crudup as her husband Elgin Branch. He does a fantastic job realistically portraying a husband analyzing her wife’s behaviors.
There is no disrespect to a delightful debut by Emma Nelson as the daughter Bee. She provides so much charm and her first-time performance shows some solid career development for the future much like Jacob Tremblay.
The problem with “Bernadette” is that the premise seems like it would hold a lot of great potential through its trailers, but Linklater plays it very safe like a Fox PG-family film basically misleading it’s PG-13 rating. It could have used a lot more depth and emotion through Bernadette’s personality in general.
It feels like Linklater is trying to match Clint Eastwood’s film from last year “The 15:17 to Paris”, where it does not match pretty much every film of his filmography.
I am very sorry, but Kristen Wiig and especially Laurence Fishburne (coming off “Last Flag Flying”) feel incredibly wasted. Kristen Wiig does such a juvenile handling of the neighbor Audrey to the point where she is incredibly miscast. Meanwhile, Laurence Fishburne plays Bernadette’s mentor Paul and he is kind of there for the pay check.
Cate Blanchett as Bernadette Fox tries, but at the same time does such a live-action cartoon version of her that it would feel if it was one of Barry Sonnenfeld’s recent films like “Nine Lives”.
The weirdest thing about this movie is it can sometimes turn into a documentary of some sorts. During two scenes when Bee looks at a computer, the movie quickly delves right into what she is watching which is a documentary ENTIRELY on Bernadette’s career.
It’s weird, but it’s not like how “The Dinner” pulled this obscure Gettysburg documentary out of nowhere during the middle of that film. Jeez, do I hark that terrible day I saw that movie.
Without question, “Where’d You Go Bernadette” is not just Linklater’s weakest film, but also his most inconsistent in his career by a long shot.
Four words. Richard Linklater deserves better.
Grade: 3.5/10
