Don DeLillo wrote White Noise (the book) way back in the 80s. Baumbachs screen adaptation here is a hilarious existential crisis stream of consciousness film where Kylo Ren is a H:tler expert, his wife Frances Ha is hopped up on 'Dylar' trying to fend off her fear of death and a cloud of gas is unleashed on their little 80s retro-style suburb. I wonder if the other non-meta thinking commentors watched Wandavision and thought "This is a real pretentious sitcom!" It's satire about academia and family life. Note that - it's satire about ACADEMIA and FAMILY LIFE. I'm repeating that because some of the others didn't get that and saw the film as pretending to be academic. IT"S RIFFING ON IT NOT BEING IT. How you can look at Don Cheadles professor of "Elvis Studies" in any other way but hilariously, is beyond me. Lighten up tankies! The war is in the mind not in the universities on your children!

Despite a conventional narrative this film relies on engaging into intellectual combat with you, the audience, as if it was the book. Advertising, media and consumerism are its own character in the film - occupying the background or 'white noise' around the family. This is important to grasp or else you will be turned off by the cacophony and quick pacing of the scenes. It's not hiding it's literary connection to post-modernism so the dialogue is RICH IRONY and the scenes are high-satire concept. That means two things, it's not for your average bear and if you do get it, it delivers the good a'plenty. For other appreciators of good things this has REWATCH value. If you have not considered the futility of your own mortality in false inflation post-pandemic greedworld you will struggle to understand Baumbachs pseudo-metaphorical pandemic told via DeMilos early 80s polemic. If you are muddling through since lockdown and wondering if there will ever be normality in media dominated, soma dependance culture - this movie is for you.

2 Parts Wes Anderson 2 parts Paul Thomas Anderson 2 parts Godard and 2 parts Salvador Dali.