Saturday night, while my sister and a friend went to go see 47 Meters Down: Uncaged, I went to go see, by myself, in an empty theater, the newly released Where’d You Go, Bernadette. A lot of people would be very uncomfortable with that, my sister included, but I think it’s sort of awesome! And the fact that it’s happened to me twice in one month (The Art of Self Defense) means that people are sleeping on some pretty good cinema!
To preface, I have not read the novel that this movie was adapted from, so I can’t really give a comparison to that, but what I saw I did enjoy, although it did drag at times. The film follows the paranoid and reclusive Bernadette, who lives in a gigantic old church with her daughter, Bee, and Microsoft-genius husband, Elgin. Since Bee has earned perfect grades, her parents promised her whatever she wanted, which was a trip to Antarctica.
Between the trip, we see Bernadette make a lot of exchanges with a money manager named Manjula, and we see that Elgin is very dedicated to work more than he is with the life of his family. After some erratic behavior and some hostile encounters with her nosy neighbor, Audrey, Elgin decides to stage an intervention for Bernadette, where she decides to run away. She leaves a clue with the neighbor so that Bee will know to come looking for her.
Despite her distaste for people and leaving the house, Bernadette does in fact go on the trip to Antarctica, where she meets up with a scientist that is getting ready to do some work down by the South Pole. This reinvigorates Bernadette’s years-dormant architecture interest, as she once had a very famous career in the field. After several days, Bee and Elgin finally catch up to Bernadette and give her their blessing to go work at the South Pole.
Honestly, it was all a little drawn out for the first hour, with the last half hour being more of the adventure. I love Cate Blanchett, especially in this prickly role, but I felt like Kristen Wiig and Billy Crudup were underutilized despite their main character status in the film. Even though I have not read the novel, from the few summaries I’ve read, it seems like some key parts were rushed through or omitted completely, but the overall story was in tact. This is a Sunday afternoon sort of film, so if you’ve got a grandma or mother who likes these kinds of films, then by all means, go see it. Otherwise, skip it (but not for 47 Meters Down: Uncaged).