'White Noise' gives Wellington short shrift

WELLINGTON — If you're expecting downtown Wellington to be the star of the upcoming Netflix movie "White Noise," prepare to be disappointed. Crews pumped big money into giving Herrick Avenue storefronts makeovers with 1980s signage and spent four days filming there last summer. So when Mayor Hans Schneider was invited to a VIP watch party at Cinemark in Valley View, he assumed the village would get decent screen time. Instead, he said he was shocked that Wellington was only featured in a single scene that lasted about 10 seconds. The scene shows characters played by Adam Driver and Greta Gerwig strolling down the sidewalk across the street from the Herrick Memorial Library. "That was your money shot. That was your wide-angle shot. That was the extent of it," Schneider said. Murals painted on the sides of downtown buildings were nowhere to be seen, he said. Nor was a large sign for the fictional village of Blacksmith that had been erected on the town square. A night scene with Driver's station wagon skidding through the intersection of routes 58 and 18 landed on the cutting room floor, Schneider said. So did a sequence with an ambulance and people wearing haz-mat suits as they responded to a toxic disaster. "They poured a lot of money into that, and didn't really use any of it," he said. By comparison, the Liam Neeson action flick "The Marksman" filmed for about 12 hours in Wellington in 2019. That translated to several minutes on screen. Erik Andrews' experience seeing "White Noise" was somewhat different. His home at the corner of Forest and Cedar streets in Oberlin was central to the plot. Interiors were shot on a sound stage, not in Oberlin. But Andrews estimated that exteriors — people running on and off his porch, looking in windows and peering from the attic — and nearby shots of the neighborhood appeared 10 to 15 times, totaling a minute or two on screen. Crews built a small, temporary addition to the side of the historic home. Otherwise, it looked pretty much the same way on the big screen as it does in real life, Andrews said. "The paint on this house is 125 years old, so it's not like it's smoothly painted," he said. "That shows up. When they zoom in on the house, it looks just like it looks. That's the kind of house the movie director was going for." Other Northeast Ohio filming locations popped on screen, he said. The opening scene of students reporting to college for the semester was filmed at Andrews Osborne Academy in Willoughby, and another segment was filmed at the old Cleveland Play House. A scene featuring Driver in a chemistry lab was shot at Wilker Hall at Baldwin Wallace University. Professor James McCargar acted as a science adviser. "During the walk-throughs, with all the staff moving around, it was incredible to watch. To see how the actors and the director communicate was incredible, magical even," McCargar said in an article published by Baldwin Wallace. Oberlin College reportedly did not have a cameo in "White Noise." At the time the movie was filmed, the college's COVID-19 policies were extremely tight. One scene at a campground had a sign that clearly read "Brecksville, Ohio," Schneider said. Highway scenes with fleeing cars looked like Ohio, "but it could have been Massachusetts just the same," he said. Wellington and Oberlin both show up in the end credits, Andrews said. Get your pause button ready — he said there are hundreds of local thank-yous at the end, and they went by too quickly for Andrews to see whether his own name was among them. Familiar filming locations aside, the movie may not be everyone's cup of tea. It wasn't Schneider's. He walked away from the screening unsure whether "White Noise" was trying to be a comedy, drama, satire or action romp. "I think the actors did a nice job. From a film perspective, certainly beautifully shot," he said. "But just storywise, I think it was a lot to put into two hours and 15 minutes, roughly." There were jokes that hit, and Schneider said he particularly enjoyed the end credits scene, which featured customers dancing in the aisles of a grocery store. "It was just fun," he said. Schneider's verdict, however, is that "White Noise" probably would have been better suited to an eight-episode miniseries. He said that would have given more time to flesh out characters and develop the plot. While Schneider has not read the 1985 novel by Don DeLillo, Andrews has. He said the film adaptation is "reasonably" faithful, and delves into the same questions about the meaning of life and how prepared people are to die. If you like the book, and like other movies by director Noah Baumbach, you'll really like "White Noise," he said. Andrews said he's already making plans to view the film a second time when it arrives on Netflix on Dec. 30. Schneider, not so much. While being shot locally is enough of a draw for a first viewing, he said the film didn't live up to expectations. "It was fun to have them here. I hope another movie looks at Wellington, and they come down and want to film," he said. "Certainly we would welcome that again." Jason Hawk can be reached at (440) 329-7122 or news@lcnewspapers.com.