Where’d You Go, Bernadette is the kind of film I used to hate on principle. It starts with two big strikes: 1) It’s pretty clear that the prime function of this film is to garner an Oscar nomination for Cate Blanchett. 2) This is the least-relatable protagonist of 2019. I would sooner find myself wearing the shoes of Aladdin, Hobbs and/or Shaw, or the wooden tongue-depressor animated feet of Forky before I could relate to Bernadette Fox, an award-winning architect who has failed to work in twenty years because … life?
The Fox mansion (Coop? Warren?) is, I believe, a live-in haunted house on a cul-de-sac in greater metropolitan Seattle. At first, we think the Foxes (foxen?) are eccentric. Not every family is cool with water damage and has a leak bucket in every room. In fact, not all families of three are cool with a house of 7 bathrooms (2.5 functional). At some point, we realize that Bernadette is an architect; this house is obviously a fixer-upper. It seems we’re still very early in the fixer stage. Meanwhile, the not-so-fantastic Mr. Fox, er that’s Mr. “Branch,” sorry, (Billy Crudup) is a Microsoft exec and middle-schooler Bee (Emma Nelson) is pushing a trip to Antarctica, because this, apparently, is what you do when money is never an issue.
Bernadette has issues. She doesn’t like people. Her biggest objection to Antarctica is not that it’s Antarctica; it’s that one can’t get there without a crowded cruise ship. She has a hostile relationship with Audrey (Kristen Wiig), the only neighbor who will talk to her, and communicates almost exclusively through email with what appears to be a personal handler named “Manjula.” Manjula is looking into sea sickness sedatives for the Antarctica trip. Bernadette is looking into excuses to get out of her commitment.
Somewhere around here, I started to realize this was less a real story and more an acting clinic for Cate Blanchett. Cate Blanchett is a lovely actress. Look at her act. Act, Cate, act. Check out that accent. Look at those emotions fly. Woo. Go Cate. But between the random medication jelly bean jar and Bernadette’s decision to erect a billboard specifically installed to tell Audrey she’s not welcome, I realized that I’m not exactly relating to this character. Oh, I certainly know anxieties and I certainly have had problems with neighbors … but lady, you’ve been a hermit for twenty years, what exactly do you think life owes you? Personally, I found Charlize Theron in Monster a more relatable character.
Suffice to say, I came around. Maybe I just hate Kristen Wiig, too. Or maybe I finally recognized the human beneath the anxieties, one who simply wants something else, sometimes it doesn’t matter what. Lord knows I don’t recommend this film to anybody who doesn’t have a six-figure income and a standing Xanex prescription. But as a middle-aged adult, I can start getting behind supreme dissatisfaction that has no perceivable or even logical root. And I would hope my family would seek for me if I ever went so far off the deep end that I needed to be found. Where’d You Go, Bernadette ain’t gonna make my favorite anything list, but I ended up with a greater appreciation than where I started. Is that enough for you? God, I hope not.
A recluse of scarce adaptation
Bordering on live animation
Her reputation to vet
Where’d You Go Bernadette?
To the land of the cheap nomination
Rated PG-13, 130 Minutes
Director: Richard Linklater
Writer: Richard Linklater & Holly Gent & Vincent Palmo Jr.
Genre: What’s more fun than the issues of the well-to-do?
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: The kind of people who think Shirley MacLaine deserves more Oscars
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: Anyone who cannot relate to a white woman naming her child “Balakrishna”
