Obviously, if you’re a filmmaker, you don’t hire Cate Blanchett to be the star of your film and then only have her come in at the end. So, even before you step into the theater to watch Richard Linklater’s “Where’d You Go Bernadette,” you know that Blanchett will be front and center. But for fans of the novel, and critics of the film, that’s where Linklater and the production of the film went wrong.
As detailed in a new interview and report from Vulture, the oft-delayed ‘Bernadette’ is finally hitting theaters this weekend, but not after behind-the-scenes drama regarding the script and ultimately disagreements between producers and Linklater, which have all added up to a film that many are seeing as a lost opportunity.
“We can’t have our protagonist be gone from the movie for 35, 40 minutes — she’s the story,” Linklater said. “Bee doesn’t know where Bernadette is. Elgie doesn’t know. So it’s still the story; you’re just given more privilege. To me, her journey is really what it’s all about.”
Fans of the best-selling novel will read that quote and be confused. The novel, written by author Maria Semple, is actually a non-linear mystery novel about the disappearance of a mother and her daughter teaming with her husband to find out just where Bernadette went. In fact, the title character isn’t in the first few hundred pages of the novel.
The report says that the original writers of the script, Michael H. Weber and Scott Neustadter, spent the better part of two years sticking close to the novel’s plot as best they can. However, when Linklater came aboard, he brought on Holly Gent and Vincent Palmo Jr. to help him co-write the script, dumping just about everything else from the first script, instead putting Bernadette at the center of the story and eliminating some key plot points from the novel (which we won’t cover, for spoilers sake).
What then transpired, according to Vulture’s sources, is a series of disagreements about the key conceit of how to use Bernadette between producers and Linklater, with the latter ultimately winning the day. The film suffered as well, as least from a release point of view, being delayed from May 2018 to October 2018 to March 22 of this year, before finally resting on August 16.
Those delays don’t mean much to Linklater, who sees it just as the studio doing its thing.
“But if they were dumping the movie, they would have just thrown it out there and not given a shit,” said Linklater. “We’re not the film anyone’s getting out of the way for. We’re the little film that’s trying to find its way in the world. So when some big-ass film jumps on your date, you can take that date and have assured failure in the theatrical world, or you can find another date.”
Ultimately, the fans will vote with their ticket-buying dollars. Will ‘Bernadette’ take off and become a hit like the novel? Or will the fans of the book not enjoy the massive changes? We’ll find out soon enough, as the film is in theaters now.