The script, cowritten
by Iannucci with David Schneider, Ian Martin and Peter Fellows, doesn't so much joke about dictatorship as find the
very existence of authoritarianism to be one of humanity's sickest, saddest, oldest jokes — a fine distinction, but an important one, because it
prevents the film from feeling exploitative, instead lending it the feeling of a lament in which the storyteller laughs so that he won't cry.