The film, being an adaptation, is based on Don DeLillo's famous postmodern novel White Noise,
a subtly satirical story about a professor of "Hitler studies" (Adam Driver's character) at a liberal arts college in Middle America and his fourth wife.
The couple must face their crippling fear of death when an "airborne toxic event” from a chemical spill creates potentially lethal clouds.
This leads the cynically ruminative academic to gather his four precocious children and sarcastic wife
and head through endless traffic to some kind of barely-possible safety.
The dark comedy was one of DeLillo's most important books, bringing his uniquely stylized, intellectual vision to the mainstream.
DeLillo's work is one of his best examples of sly cultural commentary
and acts as a strange, funny, and damning critique of American consumerism, academia, marriage, and other institutions.