Reviewed by Hannah Spencer.
Director: Adam McKay, 2021, Paramount Pictures, 138 mins.
An analogy for climate change, Don’t Look Up is a searing satire of the lack of action to prevent a global emergency.
The outbreak of COVID-19 brought added relevance to the film as another urgent threat that failed to stir decisive political action.
Moving away from director Adam McKay’s broad comedies of Anchorman (2004) and Talladega Nights (2006), Don’t Look Up is black comedy filled with searing social critiques in line with The Big Short (2018) and his work on the series Succession.
Leonardo DiCaprio (The Revenant) and Jennifer Lawrence (Silver Linings Playbook) lead as astronomers who discover a “world destroying” comet on a collision course with earth.
Attempting to warn the world there are six months and 14 days to prevent the apocalypse they are continually thwarted.
Their urgent message is met with political apathy by Meryl Streep’s (The Hours) Trump adjacent, president who is more concerned with the upcoming primaries; a media circus too caught up in celebrity culture and sound bites; and rising wave of “comet denialists”.
The terrifying part of Don’t Look Up is not the comet, but the inability to generate collective action and unbiased media coverage in the face of a clear and present danger.
When Jennifer Lawrence’s character (correctly) screams “We’re all going to die!” on national television and instantly becomes an internet meme it hits just a little too close to home.
Don’t Look Up has been poorly received by critics although it was surprisingly nominated for four Academy Awards including best picture.
Whilst definitely not a great piece of film, and grossly USA-centric, McKay’s work of screaming frustration and rage has been overwhelmingly celebrated by climate scientists.
Astrophysicist and science communicator, Neil Degrasse Tyson tweeted to his 14 million followers “Everything I know about news-cycles, talk shows, social media, & politics tells me the film was instead a documentary”.
Similarly, climate scientist and author, Peter Kalmus wrote an opinion piece about how the film “captures the madness” he saw everyday while trying to communicate and galvanize action on climate change.
Not an especially funny film, but certainly thought provoking.
The scathing criticism of modern media is particularly chilling.
3 out of 5 stars
In theatres and on Netflix
