Where'd You Go, Bernadette

I read the novel Where'd You Go, Bernadette by Maria Semple years ago in a book club that I once belonged to.  It was one of the funniest books that I had ever read so I was really excited to see the movie adaptation last night.  Even though it had a different tone than the book, I quite enjoyed this movie!  Bernadette Fox (Cate Blanchett) was once a brilliant and prize-winning architect in Los Angeles.  After a devastating incident with one of her houses, she flees to Seattle and lives with her husband Elgin (Billy Crudup) and daughter Bee (Emma Nelson) in a crumbling mansion that she is halfheartedly renovating.  Without a creative outlet, she becomes antisocial, agoraphobic, and acerbic, channeling all of her energy into criticizing the provinciality of Seattle and the pretentiousness of the other parents at Bee's school.  After a series of troubling incidents, Elgin decides that Bernadette needs professional help and stages an intervention with a therapist (Judy Greer) which causes Bernadette to run away.  When Bernadette disappears in order to find herself in the unlikeliest of places, Bee sets out to discover where she is.  Because the novel is epistolary, some of the snarky humor doesn't really translate very well to the screen but I still really enjoyed it because the story about a woman who loses herself, both literally and figuratively, is much more poignant in the movie (deeply flawed characters finding redemption is one of my favorite themes).  Blanchett gives an incredible performance, especially whenever Bernadette goes on a manic rant about her surroundings.  On the page Bernadette is an unsympathetic character but Blanchett imbues her with a certain humanity that is hard to resist.  Finally, I found the resolution of the movie to be much more uplifting than that of the novel and I actually prefer it.  While I laughed out loud reading the book, I enjoyed the movie for its heart and I would recommend it.

Note:  I have always wanted to go to Antarctica!