by Adam Ritchie, Contributing Writer
To begin, I want to acknowledge that the latest film from Adam McKay seems to be quite polarizing amongst my trusted sources and fellow SiftPop contributors. Secondly, Adam McKay is a director that in general I feel I am on the same wavelength as, whether it is his pure comedy collaborations with Will Ferrell, or his more dramatic (than comedic) films. My final verdict may not come as too much of a surprise.
In a movie filled with A listers, Oscar winners, and Oscar nominees, Don’t Look Up centers on a comet hurtling toward the planet. For film aficionados, the cast alone should be more than enough to have you press play! It includes Oscar winners Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, and Mark Rylance, as well as Oscar nominees Jonah Hill and Timothée Chalamet. Then there are some recognizable names from the great supporting cast, including Ron Perlman, Himesh Patel, Michael Chiklis, Tyler Perry, Melanie Lynskey, Ariana Grande, and Scott (Kid Cudi) Mescudi.
Fundamentally, Don’t Look Up is a satirical look at what might happen if an extinction level event were to threaten the planet in today’s world, and for me not only is it extremely accurate in how this may (and is being) be dealt with, but the tension McKay manages to portray on screen at times is absolutely frightening to contemplate. We do have very recent examples to compare with, i.e. climate change, and also when Covid was in its early days, governments largely ignore the threat and make decisions based on their own interests, and not for the public at large.
Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Lawrence) are responsible for finding the comet, and then trying to convince President Orlean (Streep) that the planet has six months and 14 days to survive.
Initially, the threat is given no public attention, until Mindy and Dibiasky are encouraged to leak the news to the media. The comet only gets any real exposure because Dibiasky loses control and goes on a rant when hosts of a news magazine show are dismissive, subsequently prompting the internet mockery and memes of which we are all sadly accustomed to today. The president only decides to take action to help improve her approval rating when she is caught in a sex scandal and needs to divert attention away.
The plan is to send a series of shuttles to strike the comet and hopefully divert it using nuclear weapons. Just after launch, the president orders the strike to be abandoned at the behest of the CEO of her biggest political donor Peter Isherwell (Rylance), as his company BASH has discovered the comet has trillions of dollars of mineable materials within it. The plan now is to break up the comet to allow it to hit the planet while recovering the broken pieces to extract its valuable minerals.
McKay does a superb job of holding a large satirical mirror up high into our faces, as the film depicts the planet becoming divided on the threat level and our collective celebrity obsession. Some call for destruction of the comet, some agree with the BASH/Orlean plan to exploit the comets riches as it will create jobs, and some don’t even believe the comet is real at all.
Mindy and Dibiasky launch a campaign to encourage other nations to develop their own defense against the comet and encourage the world to “Just look up!” However, this is met with an opposing campaign from President Orlean saying, “Don’t Look Up!”
Performances from the cast are stellar across the board. DiCaprio and Lawrence are as great as we’ve come to expect. Blanchett is superb, and is very Tilda Swinton-esque, Rylance is almost unrecognizable, and plays the overly confident, slightly unhinged tech CEO with such control and annoying brilliance that real life tech CEOs have. Hill loves playing the douche bag and pulls it off with aplomb, and Streep fits seamlessly into this film as easily as she does with any role.
For me, Don’t Look Up is pretty much a flawless satire and speaks the absolute truth on how society handles world events in the internet/social media age. The duality of the climate change allegory and how governments are dragging their feet all in the name of corporate and lobbyist interests with the regular populous an all too distant, but easily manipulated obstacle is not lost on me, and I love it. Why do I love it? Because I firmly believe comedy is supposed to poke fun at the big (and taboo) issues to bring them into the social consciousness and conscience.
Coupled with the metaphor of governments not wanting us to look up from our phones to keep us docile, misinformed, and truth be told, dumb so they can go about their merry way in deception and destruction, Don’t Look Up reflects the sadness of modern society in an all too accurate way. There is no real leadership in government, and those in power are there only for their own benefit and to do the covert bidding of their paymasters. Public opinion and social media has, if anything, too loud a voice and influence over the majority, as the minority opinion often speaks the loudest. If you need confirmation of that, have a read of some social media comments regarding COVID-19 vaccines in your area.
The world is owned and run by celebrity and money (nee greed). I would like to wager that the polarizing reviews for Don’t Look Up are coming from a younger audience that can’t see past these facts as they haven’t lived during an era when these things weren’t as prevalent. My point being is this is the saddest part of it all, that the future leaders of the planet thinking that social media and money are what count most when making decisions that affect the larger populous.
Rating: A
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