Kate Blanchett is magnificent as she captures the essence of Bernadette Fox in the latest Annapurna Film “Where’d You Go Bernadette?”
The film title asks the question in more than just a physical aspect but also touches on that of a mental and spiritual idea as well. Once a famous prize winning architect, now years later we see a slightly different version of Bernadette as she embraces the role of mother to her young daughter on the brink of teenagehood herself, but she like her mother is not the typical child as her brains make for an interesting twist with the idea of going on vacation to the mysterious Antarctica. This comes as a surprise to her parents as to the abstractness of location she wants to go to, but they agree.
Throughout the movie, one sees glimpse of another life of Bernadette as her daughter finds video archives which tells another story of her mother’s successful career which quickly deminished when her father came into the picture. It’s a cleaver way of the film makers telling back stories of the character by way of another character and in that way made the audience curious about what was to happen next. In this way we see the spiritual question of wondering ( from the daughter’s point of view) just what happened to her mother and especially when her mother does in fact disappear, it gives the daughter more ambition to find her and figure out how to make her complete again.
Where’d you go Bernadette came out in theaters, August 16, 2019 and is currently playing in a theater near you.