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A30 PEOPLE & ARTS
Saturday 14 September 2019
Terrific cast but too much white noise in ‘Silence’

By JOCELYN NOVECK live inside a piano. Peter bed to better recreate her
Associated Press (an excellent, excruciat- morning routine, then gives
Market it right, and you can ingly sensitive Peter Sars- the diagnosis: she needs to
get people to pay for liter- gaard) is a “home tuner,” replace her toaster.
ally anything these days. able to detect the imper- Peter certainly makes the
Especially in Manhattan. ceptible frequencies com- lives of his clients better,
That’s why it’s not especial- ing from, say, your refrig- helping them sleep or im-
ly shocking when, at the erator or toaster — which proving their love lives. But
start of the “The Sound of in turn are affecting your he craves hard-won rec-
Silence,” the lead charac- mood and behavior. Ellen ognition in the academic
ters of Peter and Ellen meet (a terrific Rashida Jones) is world, especially the honor
because she’s hired him to stressed and can’t sleep, of being published in the
tune her apartment. and friends have suggested New American Journal of
Yes, we said tune her apart- that Peter, whose work has This image released by IFC Films shows Peter Sarsgaard in a Sound.
ment, and no, she doesn’t been written up in The New scene from “The Sound of Silence.” An old professor friend who
Associated Press pretends to support him
Yorker no less, can help. So lence becomes distracting, (an entertainingly wry Aus-
far, so good. We’ve all paid like so much white noise. tin Pendleton) proves a dis-
for things that sound much The lead performances, appointing ally.
less sensible, and hey, The though, are compelling — And the professor’s assis-
New Yorker! both intelligent and vulner- tant (Samuel Diaz), who
The somewhat frustrating able. In his lived-in tweed offers logistical support,
thing about “The Sound of suit, Sarsgaard is moving as has his own self-advancing
Silence,” a debut effort by a dignified (and indignant) goals in mind. He suggests
director Michael Tyburski, man utterly certain he’s that Peter could monetize
who co-wrote the script made a key breakthrough. his knowledge.
with Ben Nabors, is not that If he’s right, your aural en- This isn’t about commerce,
we’re asked to buy into this vironment — your neigh- Peter replies sharply.
boldly quirky premise, but borhood, your block, even Peter takes the same
that we sometimes can’t your kitchen — determines stance when offered an
tell if the filmmakers them- how you feel and also the opportunity by a slick en-
selves buy into it. There are choices you make. trepreneur, the head of a
moments in which the mov- Peter traipses around the company called Sensory
ie seems to veer decidedly city with his tuning forks and Holdings, to make some
toward self-knowing com- his headphones, testing money by selling an aurally
edy but never quite gets wind patterns in the park pleasing atmosphere to
there, and then turns so sad and making house calls. At clients. He doesn’t want to
as to be tragic. The ambiva- Ellen’s place, he lies on her sink that low.q

Best-selling Southern author Anne

Rivers Siddons dies at 83

in 1954 and wrote for the
student newspaper, The
Auburn Plainsman. Siddons
wrote columns in the pa-
per in favor of integration
which gave her national
attention and got her fired
from the paper. Her 1976
novel “Heartbreak Hotel” is
loosely based on the expe-
rience.
“She was the epitome of
the proper Southern wom-
an she was raised to be
and yet she found herself in
This Sept. 21, 2000 file photo shows Author Anne Rivers Siddons the middle of the civil rights
at her Brooklin, Maine, cottage. movement, and wrote
Associated Press about it, and joined in, and
Associated Press Charleston, South Carolina, became this incredible fig-
CHARLESTON, S.C. (AP) news outlets reported. Her ure,” friend and fellow au-
— Anne Rivers Siddons, cause of death was lung thor Cynthia Graubart said.
a best-selling Southern cancer, her stepson David “Heartbreak Hotel” was
author known for novels Siddons told The Post and turned into the feature film
“Heartbreak Hotel” and Courier. “Heart of Dixie” in 1989.
“Peachtree Road,” has Siddons was born Sybil Another novel, “The House
died. She was 83. Anne Rivers on Jan. 9, 1936 Next Door,” was the basis
Siddons died Wednesday in Fairburn, Georgia. She of a made-for-television
morning at her home in attended Auburn University movie released in 2006.q