Cadê Você, Bernadette?

My wife and I went to see this movie because Kristen Wiig is in it and it looked like it would be funny. It is funny - but it is a lot more. It is quirky (we love quirky movies!), edgy, sometimes uncomfortable, but mostly enlightening (as in bringing light in). It could have been titled "Where'd you go Human Spirit?", or "Where'd you go Imagination?, or "This is what happens to society when fear drives honest, loving, intelligent people to start acting weird and give up on each other". And it shows us the answer in a very positive way. So, it was not Bridesmaids. Closer to "Welcome to Me" or "Skeleton Twins" maybe (I loved both), but not really like any other movie I can think of. Note: The critics seemed to not like it. That is almost a sure sign of a good movie to me. Bless their pointy little heads.

Bernadette is the kind of woman you would cross the road to avoid and who would also cross the road to avoid meeting you and she's just the perfect character for Cate Blanchett to add to her portfolio of oddballs. She's also married to something of an oddball, (Billy Crudup), who's some kind of computer genius and between them they have managed to create a nice, normal teenage daughter, (newcomer Emma Nelson, superb), and they all live in a Seattle mansion that is literally falling apart. But Bernadette isn't just a sociopathic oddball; she is, or was, a great architect who dropped out and whose midlife crisis has lasted a couple of decades.

"Where'd you go, Bernadette" is a Richard Linklater comedy so you know we are in odddball territory to begin with. What you might not realise is that it's also very funny and naturally more than a little sad. It's like a walking, talking New Yorker cartoon brought to glorious life and not just by Blanchett, (no-one does crazy quite like her), Crudup and Nelson but by a terrific supporting cast headed by Kristen Wiig and with pitch-perfect turns from Judy Greer, Zoe Chao, Laurence Fishburne, David Paymer and Steve Zahn. I loved every crazy, off-the-wall and marvellously moving moment.

My wife and I watched this movie at home on DVD from our public library. We enjoyed it, all actors are good in the roles and to me Blanchett turns in one of her better performances as the genius architect that ceased to create after her difficulties with pregnancy and motherhood.

Cate Blanchett is Bernadette, living in Seattle with her Microsoft executive husband and teen daughter. She doesn't do much anymore, they bought an old large fixer upper but are not fixing it up. She doesn't seem to have any friends. At one point her family arranges an intervention, they think Bernadette needs to be hospitalized but she escapes.

Having planned a trip at their daughter's request, to Antarctica, and seemingly being aborted, through a series of quirky events all three of them end up there and Bernadette finds the inspiration to reignite her passion for architecture.

Good movie. Filmed partly in Greenland standing in for Antarctica,

She must create so she doesn't become a menace to society. A beautiful insight into the mind of an artist who bottled up her creative drive, and became dysfunctional.

I ended up seeing this movie to kill some time and I am so glad I did. As someone with anxiety, depression, and past trauma, this movie moved me. The way people can judge others with mental health issues when they have no idea what it's like, is appalling. Cate Blanchet's portrayal of someone fighting inner demons while fighting people who completely misunderstand her is awe-inspiring. I highly recommend this movie for anyone- especially anyone who has or knows someone with mental health issues. I will be taking everyone I know to see this movie.