White Noise Ending Explained: White Noise has a fantastic ending that stands out among 2022 movies. Netflix premiered White Noise, written and directed by Noah Baumbach and based on Don DeLillo's 1985 novel of the same name, on December 30 following a limited theatrical release in November.
Baumbach's film, starring Adam Driver, Greta Gerwig, and Don Cheadle, is the first adaptation of a DeLillo novel to hit theatres since the book was first released. White Noise is the first film adaptation of Don DeLillo's critically acclaimed novel & it is also Noah Baumbach's directorial debut.
Baumbach vividly depicts the satire that probes the nature of humanity through a series of disasters that causes its protagonists to contemplate death. The final scene of White Noise takes place in one of its most pivotal locations: a clean, well-organized grocery store.
Baumbach's adaptation retains many of the novel's themes & the narrative itself suggests that viewers have plenty of questions about both the novel & the film's conclusion. In this article, we will read White Noise Ending Explained. We will see what happens at the end of White Noise.
White Noise Plot Synopsis
In the opening scene of White Noise, we meet Professor Jack Gladney, who, in the 1980s, founded the academic field of “Hitler Studies” & teaches it at the fictional College-on-the-Hill. Despite his expertise in the field, he does not speak German & is secretly learning the language in preparation for a conference speech.
Then, we delve deeper into his ancestry. Jack's wife Babette is his fourth. In addition, their offspring are a heterogeneous group, with members from both their previous marriages and their current ones.
There's Denise from one of Jack's previous marriages, Heinrich and Steffie from the other, and Wilder, the product of their own union with Babette. Every morning, we overhear the family engaging in a flurry of chatter about everything from space trivia to yogurt.
Denise finds her mom tossing something out of the ordinary one day & she learns that it's a drug. To her delight, she learns that it goes by the name of Dylar after an extensive search. Later, after a ponderous discussion of mortality, Jack & Babette agree that life without each other would be incredibly lonely.
A short time after this conversation, Jack has a nightmare in which a man is attempting to kill him. Next, as Jack gets ready to deliver his speech at the Hitler conference, his colleague & American culture professor, Professor Murray Siskind, asks for his assistance in creating a similar niche field for Elvis Presley as he did for the German dictator.
Jack stops by Murray's class and engages the students in a round of confusing verbal sparring about Hitler and Elvis. The students and faculty members alike gathered to watch the two educators perform.
While Jack builds to his climax, a truck carrying a flammable substance collides with a train carrying toxic chemicals. A toxic gas cloud is released over the town as a result of the resulting fire.
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White Noise Ending Explained
The Airborne Toxic Event occurs about halfway through the film, and it alters Jack's life irrevocably by exposing him to a toxic cloud. He is told that he will die from the exposure sooner or later & even though the so-called “experts” can't tell him how long he has to live, the knowledge only makes him more terrified of dying.
Most things return to normal after the traumatic event, but Jack notices that Babette is acting distantly. After consulting with Denise, he discovers that Babette has become dependent on a drug he learns is called Dylar.
Through his inquiries and subsequent confrontation with Babette, he learns that she has been receiving Dylar in exchange for having sex with a man named Mr. Gray, a trial drug designed to treat anxieties about death.
With the help of a pistol given to him by his friend and fellow academic Murray Siskind during the evacuation caused by the Airborne Toxic Event, Jack decides he wants to exact his revenge on the man.
A confrontation with Mr. Gray takes place at a hotel, where he eventually finds Babette as well. After being shot multiple times, Jack takes everyone to a hospital run by a group of German atheist nuns. There, Jack and Babette are able to heal and reconcile with one another; the film ends with them dancing with their family in the supermarket which has been a recurring setting.
Exactly what does this mean? The film deals with a wide range of themes, but it focuses primarily on our fascinations & preoccupations that help us cope with our fear of death. Baumbach has said of the film's closing scene, “[It] is a dance of death and a dance of life.”
It's a party to commemorate the passing of time. And that's a party for everything that exists.” According to the LA Times, the director elaborated, saying, “The book allows for so much interpretation, and I didn't want to narrow these things.”
Every day, we go through a ritual to avoid facing our own mortality, but at the same time, we surround ourselves with violent depictions of death in the media and enjoy reading about atrocities because they occur in faraway places or seem implausible. The airborne toxic event is bringing all that carnage right to our front door.
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Thus, the film essentially investigates what occurs when we are faced with our own mortality and the various ways in which we cope with the horror it creates, such as turning to family, relying on drugs, committing violent acts, or maintaining a tradition of religious belief.
