• It’s a tremendous disappointment for any project directed by Richard Linklater and starring Cate Blanchett to be a fringe recommendation—let’s get that out there first. It lacks authorship and though it’s a solid film (it’s in the archives here, clearly—and much stronger than the 51 metacritic score) it could have been directed by any number of competent directors with good taste.
  • Jeffrey Anderson from Combustible Celluloid (fantastic work as always) says it well “The downside to Richard Linklater’s Where’d You Go, Bernadette is that it doesn’t feel like a Richard Linklater film. It feels like a film he might have done for hire, or for a lark. But after that one downside, there’s nothing left but upsides”
  • The film (and performance) never reaches that level but the volatile and neurotic (moving into iconoclastic in sections) nature of Blanchett’s character makes it hard not to recall Woody’s Blue Jasmine from 2013
  • It’s damning to Linklater that this is a film about an architect and with some beautiful settings (Antarctica) and it’s not an overly beautiful film
  • It’s poignant though—and the relationships with the daughter and husband feel genuine and lived in. The narrative grabs you and the plight of this character is never uninteresting. It’s intelligent—but again there’s no artistic bravado or ambition.
  • Written by Holly Gent and Vince Palmo—the team behind Me and Orson Welles from Linklater (another fallow period for him like the one we’re in now after this and Last Flag Flying). That film ended up near like #40 for 2008 but in the archives
  • I’m not counting Linklater out—he’s had unarchiveable films before and consecutive films that didn’t land in their respective years’ top 25 (like say Me and Orson Welles and Bernie from 2008-2011) or this period here now
  • Recommend but won’t be in the top 25-30 of 2019