It’s important to pay attention to the little things — things that can be beautiful, surprising, sometimes even delightful.
That is the advice of Bernadette, the main character in the new film, “Where’d You Go, Bernadette” based on the Maria Semple novel of the same name. I loved the character of Bernadette and I loved the movie — so much so that I took her advice and went back to see it, and her, for a second time.
Cate Blanchett is pitch perfect as Bernadette Fox, an eccentric, acerbic and introverted but loving wife and mother. Bernadette lives with her husband, Elgin Branch (Billy Crudup) and their daughter Bee (delightful newcomer Emma Nelson) in a ramshackle mansion at the top of a hill in rainy Seattle, Wash. Elgin is a software developer for Microsoft, and Bee is about to graduate from a very upscale private middle school.
Bee upends the family equilibrium by reminding her parents that they had promised her whatever she wanted if she graduated with perfect grades — and what she wants is a family trip to the Antarctic.
Bernadette is panic-stricken at the thought of having to sit for dinner with a few strangers, let alone being trapped on a ship with 150 of them.
She is the sort of person who pours all her prescription pills into one jar because the colors are so beautiful together. She is fully occupied, it seems, with liberating the family dog from the built-in cupboard it gets into or dealing with blackberry vines that have sprouted inside the house.
There are even more blackberry vines outside — a whole hillside of them, in fact, which her bitchy neighbor (Kristen Wiig) insists she cut down before they invade Wiig’s property. Bernadette complies, even letting the neighbor’s contractor carry out the work. But soon after that the entire hillside, no longer anchored by vines, slides down in a rainstorm into the neighbor’s yard and house. No injuries, just chaos, but it allows everyone to say to Bernadette, “See what a menace to society you can be!”
The plot thickens, with some improbable twists, until — just at its highest pitch — Bernadette pulls a disappearing act, leaving her nearest and dearest wondering “Where’d you go, Bernadette?”
Of course, the film’s title refers on that level to her literal disappearance and the rest of the film is more or less a beautifully photographed Antarctic chase.
There is, however, another level on which the title works as well. Because it turns out that Bernadette Fox was a brilliant young architect who had even received a MacArthur Genius Grant — only to suddenly disappear completely from the architecture world.
Laurence Fishburne plays a former colleague of Bernadette’s who comes to town just in time to deliver his unvarnished verdict: “People like you must create! You were put on this Earth with a gift, and you must use it. If you don’t, you become a menace to society. Get your ass back to work and create something!”
It’s certainly a refreshing change from the old days, when men told women all they needed was to have sex and/or a baby. I was very glad that Bernadette in this story was a successful professional in her field — a genius even —- before her disappearance into domestic life.
But this film had me wondering: Who says it is uncreative to bring a new person into the world and raise her anyway? Isn’t that the single most creative thing any human being could possibly do?
Of course, buildings stay where you’ve put them (mostly). Children, on the other hand, grow up and want to go to Antartica or to Choate prep school where Bee has been accepted.
One of the best things about this movie is the relationship Bernadette has with her daughter. “We were best friends!” Bee yells at her father when he seems dubious about the chances that Bernadette will reappear. “We had the best time! And she would not do anything where she would never see me again.”
I won’t tell you how, but I will say that this film leaves everyone better than it found them — including the bitchy neighbor and my fellow filmgoers who were smiling as they left. And that is reason enough to see it.
