FILM REVIEW: Where'd You Go, Bernadette

Cate Blanchett, kayaking in Antarctica.

I really wanted to like this movie, having loved several of director Richard Linklater's earlier offerings (Bernie, Boyhood, School of Rock). Alas, I did not. Though it's sort of fun while you're watching it, Where'd You Go, Bernadette is a lot like eating movie popcorn: it's filling and tasty, but afterwards you feel slightly nauseous and still hungry for some protein. But the real problem is all the silly plot twists that will have you rolling your eyes and slapping your forehead in disbelief.

Cate Blanchett stars, and I do mean stars -- she's on screen almost every second, to the point you want to scream, "Take a break already!" As Bernadette, the rich-as-sin mother of a teenage girl and wife of a Microsoft tech genius (Billy Crudup), she's supposedly on the verge of a nervous breakdown due to the fact that she's an artist and her Muse died 20 years ago. Since then she's done little but hate the neighbors and everyone else in the world. But the only sign of her depression is the one time she falls asleep in public because of insomnia the night before. Otherwise she seems perfectly fine, looks gorgeous and is full of witty one-liners and pompous, self-important monologues delivered to her foreign assistant via cell phone.

There are some positives: Kristen Wiig is outstanding as a put-upon neighbor with a broomstick up her ass who despises Bernadette. Laurence Fishburne, an old friend of Bernadette's with almost no dialog, is on hand as the necessary black actor in a movie about white people's problems. A trip to Antarctica at the end is a magnificently beautiful travelog of drone-shot icebergs, glaciers and fjords you'll never see in person but wish you could. Also, if you like penguins there are plenty of them and they are pretty darn cute.