Ok, so I've read Ari Aster's "Scapegoat" script, and it's certainly his angriest, most unhinged movie yet. I'm still not quite sure what to make of it.
The draft I read is dated May 2026 and runs 134 pages. If "Eddington" was Aster's COVID-era treatise on a fractured America, "Scapegoat" is his post-COVID statement. It's an odd duck, this script. It plays like "Beau Is Afraid"-level anxiety mixed with a hospital procedural, a revenge thriller and an apocalyptic satire.
Spoilers below. You've been warned. I'll only cover the first half of the plot, because there are a handful of twists that just aren't worth publishing until the film has been widely seen.
So, basically, the plot leak I posted a few months ago was correct. Scarlett Johansson plays Dr. Susan Meyerstein, a decorated neurosurgeon. She wheels in a patient named "Galen Cleaver" for what should be a routine tumor removal. While she's mapping his brain, he has a seizure, his heart stops, and he dies on the table.
Problem is, "Cleaver" is a fake name. The patient is actually Galen Krause, a far-right MMA fighter and influencer with millions of followers. The President tweets that he was killed by "rogue hospital staff," and Galen's unhinged brother Evan starts doxxing Susan online. Within hours her name is everywhere and the death threats start pouring in.
Meanwhile, her husband George, a motivational speaker, hasn't answered her in a week. All she has is a text saying he needs "space." My best guess is that Jude Law will be playing George.
It gets worse. Evan barges into Susan's house, grabs her by the hair and keeps screaming one name at her: Debbie Berger. Debbie is the widow of Ray Berger, a Christian influencer and Galen's bitter rival, and Evan is convinced she paid Susan to kill his brother. Debbie is obviously supposed to be Erika Kirk here, and Aster doesn’t even hide it. I gather Ella Purnell will play Debbie as she is the only announced actress who fits the age.
Then Emily, the anesthesiologist from the surgery, vanishes. Evan corners Susan in a dark field, hints that he killed Emily, and hands her a bomb. She has three days to blow up Debbie's beach house. If she doesn't, he goes after her teenage daughter.
And then the script rewinds seven days. That's all I'll say about the story.
Honestly, it only get crazier. There's a prank war gone very wrong, and a TikTok challenge involving gasoline. There's a grieving widow who talks to her late husband on stage as an AI hologram, while banners for his meme coin hang behind her. Grok gets involved, Polymarket gets involved, there’s a Cybertruck Chase scene. It's a lot.
What I can talk about is the politics, because they're all over this thing. Aster's America is sliding into authoritarianism. National Guard troops and tanks patrol Chicago. Masked "ICCE" agents drag a Mexican woman out of her car in front of her kids. The news is full of ICCE protests turning violent, the Pentagon readying troops and a nuclear-testing program called "Project American Might."
The President is never named, but he's everywhere. He's the one tweeting about "rogue hospital staff." There are rumors on the news that he's very sick. And at one point the White House threatens to "go nuclear on Chicago" if the riots don't stop.
Trump himself is named exactly once. Late in the script, Evan livestreams an auction of a bloodstained box for a talking Trump doll from "The Apprentice." He opens the bidding at $7 million, claiming the box was held by a supporter standing behind Trump the day he was shot, and that the dried blood on it came from Trump's ear. Yep.
Pretty much every character stands in for some corner of the online right. The Krause brothers are openly neo-Nazi influencers who were key to the election, pushing white-nationalist and antisemitic content to their fans. Evan has a giant photo of Hitler on the wall of his mansion. Ray and Debbie Berger run a Christian-nationalist youth movement and a missionary empire, and Debbie dreams of becoming President. Even George is a Newsmax-watching self-help guru who fawns over Greg Gutfeld.
"Scapegoat" is a lot. It's a hospital procedural, a doxxing nightmare, a marital thriller and an apocalypse satire all at once, and, much like "Eddington," the back half turns into a string of absurd, gory set pieces.
This one's going to divide people. Some will call it Aster's most urgent work yet, others will say it's way too on the nose. I still don't know which camp I'm in.
"Scapegoat" is a lot. It's a hospital procedural, a doxxing noir, a marital thriller and an apocalypse satire all at once, and, much like "Eddington," the back half turns into a string of absurd, gory set pieces.