“Where’d You Go, Bernadette?” (M) *** and a half

THE whimsical title of writer/director Richard Linklater’s latest film (if you overlook the three he has in the pipeline) stems from a novel by screenwriter and producer of American TV series, Maria Semple.

The name Bernadette has a place in both real and cinema history, harking back to 1858 when a young French peasant girl claimed to have had a vision of the Virgin Mary. 

In 1943, Darryl F Zanuck told the story Hollywood-style in a 158-minute movie starring Jennifer Jones. That running time in that wartime era was, to say the least, uncommon. 

Ms Semple acknowledges the story, more than does the movie which lasts only 109 minutes including a very long list of credits, not greatly surprising considering its second half was filmed in Greenland and half a world away in Antartica.

It’s about a 21st century Bernadette living in Seattle and working as an architect. Without them, we’d probably still be living in mud huts. 

This Bernadette has a husband Elgie (Billy Crudup) and a daughter Bee (Emma Nelson) in her early teens. The family home looks a bit run down after a useful life, quite a contrast with the houses that have brought Bernadette high acclaim among her professional peer group.

Bernadette has what some might call a problem. The norms of either of her lives, professional and private, are restricting. She needs a sea change. She’s planning a family voyage to Antartica. 

Husband, colleagues and friends want her to spend time in a psychiatric care unit. But while Elgie has big IT smarts and is working with Microsoft on some far-out hardware (let’s all hope that at least one of them never becomes more than a figment of an author’s wildest fantasy), Bernadette’s smarts are bigger. Soon we see her paddling a kayak past an iceberg!

Linklater’s quite enjoyable film drives me to deliver two observations. Writing a novel is less limiting than making a movie based on one. As Bernadette, Cate Blanchett, as we have come to expect, is on top of her form in all respects. As a brunette (and what her natural hair colour is, it’s not easy to be certain) I have only one word to describe her – lambently lovely. 

And to purists, of which I am one in the matter of words, I make no apology for the word “Antartica”. That’s how all the actors pronounce “Antarctica”. And who am I to disagree?

At Dendy and Palace Electric

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