“Don’t Look Up” Review
Leonardo DiCaprio’s Dr. Randall Mindy freaks out at humanity’s incompetence in stopping a comet from destroying the Earth in “Don’t Look Up,” which is an Netflix Original film.
With sketch comedy, YouTube channels and an assortment of talented comedy writers, great parodies and satires are everywhere. But the best kind of parody is something that reminds us deeply about the absurdities of our real world. Netflix’s “Don’t Look Up” does just that with a deadpan style of comedy that showcases how humans would react when faced with a planetary catastrophe, something that is both funny and disheartening.
In our modern world, Ph.D. candidate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a comet, something every astronomer dreams of, and all seems fantastic. But when fellow astronomer Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) figures out the comet’s trajectory, he discovers that the comet is going to hit Earth in six months resulting in the annihilation of all life.
After alerting NASA, they try to alert the President (Meryl Streep) who seems to be more worried about her own political agenda than human extinction. They try to alert the media with talk shows trying to be more fun instead of panicking their audience. With the institutions of power failing, Mindy and Dibiasky try to get all of humanity to just look up and accept the comet while also figuring out how to save humanity, all while a bunch of bloodsucking elites try to exploit the comet instead of trying to destroy it.
Much like “Contagion,” this is a film that feels all too relevant in the COVID-19 pandemic, despite the film being written before any of us ever heard of COVID. While the film’s depiction of humanity reacting apathetically to a natural catastrophe is a clear analogy to climate change, there’s no denying the connections between the comet and the virus that has changed our way of life in the past two years.
Despite having a star-studded cast, nearly everyone disappears into these satirical roles and so many beloved actors become despicable reflections of real-life people. I love Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill but I could strangle Streep’s President Orlean and her moronic chief of staff (Hill). Mark Rylance also plays a tech mogul who wants to harvest the comet for valuable materials in a chilling performance that makes Jeff Bezos look like Jerry Lewis.
Dr. Mindy and Kate Dibiasky use every resource to try to alert people about the impending extinction of the Earth.
Between all of these moronic people trying to avoid facing reality are Mindy and Dibiasky who are just trying to do the right thing. But even they get sucked into the whirlwind that this comet is creating. Mindy craves the spotlight more after talk show appearances result in positive responses on social media. Turns out Leonardo DiCaprio as a scientist is very attractive to people. Dibiasky becomes more nihilistic when she sees how humanity is reacting to the comet, something that should be easy to believe, like it’s nothing to worry about.
Despite all of the data and the vast majority of scientists justifying this comet’s danger(it even becomes visible to humans as the months go by), people either refuse to believe in its existence or don’t think it’s a big deal. I’d say this is unbelievable but we still live in a world where people don’t think climate change is real. The comet itself becomes politicized which hinders progress even further and, without giving anything away, the people who you think wouldn’t believe in the comet don’t believe in it.
The satire of “Don’t Look Up” can be considered too on-the-nose but, let’s be honest, it’s kind of hard not to find realism in this outlandish plot. In fact, writer/director Adam McKay’s humor largely comes from how real this concept feels. Despite a great deal of commentary in the film, it is still very funny mainly at how so many people in power, who are supposed to be intelligent and decisive, are incompetent assholes.
Primarily, the main question of the film is this: We have so many tools for our collective survival but do we deserve to survive? Are humans just too stupid to live?
If the past few decades, and our responses to climate change and COVID-19, have been any clue, we are massively screwed if a comet is actually going to hit Earth. “Don’t Look Up” is clearly trying to be a satire on the level of “Doctor Strangelove” and, in many ways, both of these films are of the same cloth. But “Don’t Look Up” just doesn’t have that stark realism of Stanley Kubrick’s masterpiece or the comedic genius of Peter Sellers.
With that said, it’s still a very impressive film and is, by far, one of the best satirical films I’ve seen in a long time. Adam McKay, who started off making comedy classics like “Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy,” “Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby” and “Step Brothers,” has spent the last few years making more serious satires that examine our modern, messed up world like “The Big Short” and Vice.”
While these films have been somewhat divisive amongst people, I have found them to be brilliant films that hold a funhouse mirror towards ourselves. It’s funny but it’s all too familiar.
