Pun Salad

As previously mentioned, we're getting into the weeds on my Netflix DVD queue. I was slightly surprised by this one, very much in the "woman undergoing life crisis" genre. Maybe I was just in a good mood. That happens every so often.

Netflix's "genres" for the movie are: "Comedy, Mystery, Dramas Based on the Book, Indie Comedies, Indie Dramas". Mystery? I don't think so. (We know where Bernadette went.) And there are some funny scenes, but …

"Bernadette" is Bernadette Fox (played by Cate Blanchett), a middle-aged wife and mother living in a tony area of Seattle. We are plunged into her life without (yet) knowing her backstory. But it becomes apparent that she's prickly, motormouthed, know-it-all, hostile to her neighbors, especially Kristen Wiig. Her house is a fixer-upper, that's not being fixed up. Hubby is a computer genius, and thanks to some unspecified earlier work, the family's lifestyle is adequately funded by what's called "Microsoft money".

Daughter is graduating from middle school, and wants to go to Antarctica to celebrate. Here's what drives me crazy: everyone in this upper-class milieu pronounces it "Antartica". Which caused me to say, at increasing volume, "Ant-ARK-tica!" I'm not sure if this contributed to Mrs. Salad's movie enjoyment.

I suppose the mystery is: why is Bernadette the way she is? Is she dangerously nutso, or…? We eventually find out, and (somewhat despite myself) I found myself interested in the answer, and what happened.