Where'd You Go, Bernadette
Screening: Wednesday, March 25
Time: 2h10m
Genre: American drama/comedy/mystery
Rating: PG13
Adapted from Maria Semple’s bestselling novel, director Richard Linklater ‘s film is an ironic and compelling portrait of a home designer, at home and yet homeless. Cate Blanchette plays Bernadette, a famous (the recipient years ago of a prestigious award for house design) though no longer working architect, married to Elgie (Billy Crudup) a wealthy Microsoft engineer, with a clever and loving teenage daughter, Bee (Emma Nelson). Bernadette is housebound and isolated, stuck interminably in the midst of never ending repairs and renovations to the family’s large and run down Seattle house. Sharp-witted, quick and creative at settling scores, Bernadette is despised by her neighbours, whom she in turn despises.
As a reward for her academic success, high achieving daughter Bee chooses Antarctica as the destination for a promised family trip. However Bernadette immediately rejects Bee’s choice: Antarctica is remote, freezing, forbidding – the edge of the world; yet Bernadette’s own life in Seattle is also at the edge of her world socially and professionally.
Lost to herself and to others, she decides to “get lost”, disappearing without informing anyone as to her whereabouts. Like many others on their journey to self discovery, Bernadette must travel to a place she has rejected, to the very ends of the earth to find herself, to be truly “at home” socially and professionally. Where’d You Go, Bernadette?