I’m convinced that writer/director Noah Baumbach has always been an absurdist. Most of his films are what I would call “absurd realism.” The settings, characters, and situations are all set in reality, but people don’t really speak and act the way that Baumbach’s characters do (e.g., the dysfunctional Brooklyn family of The Squid and the Whale, the erudite slacker of Frances Ha, the all-too-worldly college students of Mistress America). After his least absurd film to date, 2019’s Marriage Story, Baumbach went for all-out absurdism by adapting Dom DeLillo’s postmodern fable “White Noise.” And it turns out that, the more absurd Baumbach gets, the more I am there for it.

Baumbach stalwart Adam Driver plays father Jack Gladney, a professor and chair of the Hitler Studies department (yup) at the College-on-the-Hill (yup). He lives with his wife, Babette (Baumbach partner and muse Greta Gerwig), and their assemblage of children (“That’s mine from wives one and three. There’s Babette’s from husband two, Wilder is ours, we’re each others fourth”) Their life in a small, apparently tranquil college town seems pretty normal until an accident leads to the “airborne toxic event.” The resulting evacuation in the second act may be the most witty and sardonic disaster movie ever. The third act turns the focus on a mysterious medication Babette has been taking; the trail this subplot takes on us goes for a weird, over-the-top kind of noir for a few minutes, but then picks back up on the absurdist take with…no kidding…German atheist nuns. It seems like everything that society can find to serve up–academia, consumerism, industry, the media, psychology, religion, pop culture–spends at least a few minutes in DeLillo and Baumbach’s crosshairs.

I found “White Noise” to be a little too all over the place to land as biting social commentary. So, if Baumbach’s goal was to make some kind of statement, I wouldn’t consider the movie a success. But, DeLillo’s postmodern vibe isn’t necessarily about making any big point because there are just too many targets. When everything is ridiculous, it’s hard to criticize anything as ridiculous. While DeLillo’s take on it may have been cynical, I thought that Baumbach succeeded in allowing the ridiculous to just be hilarious. Driver excels at being the calm presence with the right answer that turns out to be wrong almost immediately. He’s a brilliant dramatic actor who also has the chops and timing of a brilliant comedic actor. Gerwig is quite restrained for a Baumbach movie, but her restraint is actually funnier than when she plays bigger. Don Cheadle adds to the fun as one of Driver’s colleagues (as a professor of pop culture, because, of course) along with other professors Andre 3000 and Jodie Turner-Smith (who could have had more to do, but it’s a pretty full movie already). The lineup of kids–speaking only like kids in a Baumbach movie can speak–also get a significant share of the moments and the great lines. On top of all of that, you get the funniest station wagon scene since “National Lampoon’s Vacation” and the almost-a-dream-ballet closing credits sequence to LCD Soundsystem’s infectious “new body rhumba.” And every movie is better with a dream ballet.

I can’t promise that this one’s for everyone, but it was definitely for me. Do something different and make me laugh, and I’m a fan. Baumbach and company did that here.

(Photo credit: Netflix)