‘White Noise’ on Netflix Showcases Greta Gerwig’s Long-Awaited Return To Screen Acting

Netflix released a teaser for White Noise, the apocalyptic drama based on Don DeLillo’s National Book Award-winning novel of the same name. Directed by Noah Baumbach, this movie marks his and actor Adam Driver’s fifth time working together.

After a nearby chemical spill pollutes the air, Jack (Driver) and his wife, Babette, played by Greta Gerwig, must navigate family life, per The Hollywood Reporter. Described in the synopsis as simultaneously “hilarious and horrifying, lyrical and absurd, and ordinary and apocalyptic,” the movie “dramatizes a contemporary American family’s attempts to deal with the mundane conflicts of everyday life while grappling with the universal mysteries of love, death, and the possibility of happiness in an uncertain world.”

The teaser begins with a family stuck in traffic during a rainstorm. Looking into a car stuck next to them, one of the kids in the backseat says, “They don’t look scared in the Crown Victoria” before another adds, “Yeah, they’re laughing.”

As another car pulls up next to the family, a third child points out, “These guys aren’t laughing in the Country Squire,” when Driver, who is sporting a completely different look than we are used to seeing, asks, “What does it matter what they’re doing in other cars?”

One of the children responds, “I want to know how scared I should be.”

Later on in the teaser, Gerwig, who is Baumbach’s real-life partner and has worked with the director on several projects, tells Driver’s character, “Life is good, Jack. As long as the children are here and we’re safe.”

In a monotone and rather cryptic manner, Driver says, “May the days be endless. Let the seasons drift. Do not advance the action according to a plan.”

The movie also stars Raffey Cassidy, André Benjamin, Jodie Turner-Smith, and Don Cheadle.

While a U.S. release date has not yet been announced for White Noise, it will be making its world premiere at the Venice Film Festival on Wednesday, August 29. It will then go on to premiere in select theaters as well as on Netflix.