It’s AntarCtica!

Ms Spenser put Where'd You Go, Bernadette (2019) in the queue on the advice of a high-powered Silicon Valley exec friend, who believed that it was a true story. She’s very smart but often wrong. But I can see how this would appeal to her, as it’s about the lives of the rich, brilliant and very mixed up.

Cate Blanchett is Bernadette. She lives with her husband, Billy Vrudup, a brilliant software engineer whose company was bought by Microsoft, and her daughter, Emma Nelson, who is about to graduate from a private grade school and go off to Choate. They live in a rundown mansion/ex-girl’s reformatory in Seattle. Bernadette hates to leave her house, hates her perky perfect neighbor Kristen Wiig, and pretty much everything except her daughter. Her daughter requests that the family take a trip to Antarctica over winter break, and Bernadette sort of freaks out about seasickness, the flight, and in general leaving home. But she agrees.

The movie has a bit of fun showing us who Bernadette is. She seems to spend most of the day dictating texts to her Indian “personal assistant” Manjula. She asks her to order fishing vests for the trip to Antarctica, but it’s part of a minutes-long rant about Seattle, traveling, shopping, and just everything.

We also see her walking through Seattle’s Rem Koolhaus designed library, and discover that she was a famous architect who sort of dropped out of site. This is nicely introduced by a fan coming up and gushing over her - which she reacts to by looking scared and edging away. Later, at lunch with her old colleague Laurence Fishburne, she gives another long rant about Seattle, life, the LA celebrity architect scene, Antarctica, and again, everything.

Eventually, her husband goes to a psychiatrist, and they stage an intervention. Manjula is involved, but I won’t spoil that part. It comes out that he plans to take their daughter to Antarctica while she is under observation. So she heads them off by heading down herself, thinking they’ve already left - and getting on the wrong ship. Well, she didn’t have Manjula helping with the tickets.

The last act takes place in Antarctica, with Bernadette falling in love with the beautiful extremes, and her family trying to catch up with her. I could tell she was coming back to life after being closed off for too long (as long as her daughter has been alive?), but assumed she would sort of forget about her family - because she is a brilliant but self-centered monster. Well, that isn’t quite what happened, but it kind of is.

So this is very much a Wypeepo Problems movie. Some of it is clearly comedy, of the not-that-funny variety. It is also very touching in places - Director Richard Linklater wanted to direct because of the mother-daughter relationship, and does it well. It helps that Emma Nelson is a great young actor, reminding me of the girls in Booksmart, which was the only “Coming Attraction” on this disk. But once again, I think Cate Blanchett is the best thing about this, and maybe the only thing that makes it a good movie. She handles Bernadette’s quirky intelligence and everyday madness in a way that makes an obnoxious and unpleasant character relatable and even lovable. She even has a real moment with Wiig.

But the worst thing about this movie was that everyone - even scientists working there - pronounce it “Antartica“. There are two C’s people!