Jonathan Rivers (Michael Keaton) is a happily married architect with one young son, and today starts much like any other day with the family getting ready to go to work and school. Jonathan's wife is Anna (Chandra West), a successful novelist who has a big surprise for him before they leave the house: she's pregnant again. Jonathan is overjoyed at the news and has to struggle not to tell everyone else; as his wife drives away she says something to him but he can't hear it over the engine noise... little does he know that this is the last time he will see his wife as when he gets back from work, there may be a message on the answerphone but that will be all anyone will hear of Anna. Or will it?
A surprise, if brief, hit, White Noise was scripted by Niall Johnson and takes the paranormal phenomenon of E.V.P. as its hook. What is E.V.P? It's the practice of using electronic recording instruments such as tape or video recorders to receive messages from the dead - or Electronic Voice Phenomenon. This has been at the fringes of science, some would say the wackier fringes of science, for some decades, and the film helpfully explains what is going on via a title card at the start. However, you can't simply have Keaton fiddling with his shortwave radio for an hour and a half, even if it looks like that's the way it's going for a while.
Anna has disappeared, apparently after trying to fix a flat tyre and accidentally slipping into the nearby river. Weeks go by and there's no word, but Jonathan has had a strange series of phone calls which according to his cellphone are emanating from Anna's cellphone, even when he's holding it in his hand and it's not switched on. When he answers, all he hears is static. So the phenomenon of phone calls from the dead is also utilised by the script for a bonus chill, although Jonathan doesn't get a coherent message. Then he notices a man is following him and hanging around outside his home and office, which leads to a confrontation.
