Don't Look Up
Don't Look Up
Starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Jonah Hill, Meryl Streep
Directed by Adam McKay
Michigan State University astronomy graduate student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) is exploring the cosmos when she discovers a comet that wasn't seen before, and when her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) runs the tests, discovers that the comet will impact the Earth in six months, totally obliterating the planet. They take their findings to President Orlean (Meryl Streep), but she's more concerned about a disgraced Supreme Court nominee and the upcoming midterms to listen to them, and her son, Jason (Jonah Hill) - who's also the Chief of Staff - ridicules their findings. Desperate to get the word out, they go to the media and are booked on a daytime morning show hosted by Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry) and Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett), but they're more concerned about the public breakup of singing superstar Riley Bina (Ariana Grande) and DJ Chello (Scott Mescudi, AKA Kid Cudi). While Dr. Mindy keeps a calm head, Kate flies off the handle on air and is shunned by the media, while Dr. Mindy is seen as the sexy scientist, and he begins letting the fame get to his head.
Meanwhile, Kate tries again and again to get the word out, and no one seems to be listening, until the President finds this as a way to deflect negative opinions of her and bring Kate and Dr. Mindy in to take care of the comet before it hits Earth - but then learns from tech billionaire Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance) that the comet has billions of dollars worth of minerals, and decide to mine it instead, and hopefully will lead to the comet getting split into meteorites. The more Kate and Dr. Mindy try to get the truth out, the less people want to hear it, until it's possibly too late.
"Don't Look Up" opens with a quote by Will Rogers: "When I die, I want to die like my grandfather who died peacefully in his sleep. Not screaming like all the passengers in his car." This is an incredibly apt quote for the deliciously dark humorous film that will follow, as even though it's obviously something that isn't happening, it's eerily similar to events occurring right now, and how we would probably handle such a world-killing event.
Today's world is saturated with celebrity gossip, fanatical political worship, and an insatiable lust for technology in order to make us feel good, even though it's making us feel worse, and these are topics McKay addresses in his satirical way in the film. Generally, you'd think news about a planet-killing comet would be front and center, but that's doom and gloom news: people want to feel good, so they prefer hearing news about their favorite celebrities than the possible end of the world. It might be outrageous to think that such news would be buried in favor of a celebrity breakup, but I wouldn't be surprised if that actually would happen if such an event would occur. Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett play morning show hosts who believe just that: when they have the scientists on the show, they relegate them to the last segment in favor of interviewing a singer going through a breakup, and then belittle the scientists and tell them to make it more fun and exciting, as they don't peddle in doom and gloom news.
In recent years, the political climate in America has become more and more hostile, with people on either side battling one another over political differences that ultimately don't mean a thing in the grand scheme of things, because the real politicians don't give a crap about us, but what we can do for them to make them even richer and more powerful. Meryl Streep and Jonah Hill play this to their advantage as she clearly is a stand-in for Donald Trump, and how he put his family in charge of different governmental areas, as she does in the movie with her son, who's hilariously inept at his job. As the comet is hurtling toward Earth, she downplays the severity and counters the "liberal" cry of "Look Up" to "Don't Look Up" as a rallying cry much like the real-life chants we hear in politics today, and again truth and fiction seem eerily similar.
Then there's the social media aspect, which blends the celebrity gossip with political climate as both sides take to the Internet to express their contrasting views, with some believing that there's no comet at all, and others thinking they're all going to die, along with shock about the celebrity breakup. It runs parallel to the real-life Covid pandemic we're going through now, as you can see online where people either believe it's all a hoax, everyone is going to die, and everything in-between. Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence use the media to try to get their story across, and while it warps DiCaprio's Dr. Mindy's mind, Lawrence's Kate succumbs to political backlash over her statements, but still continues to tell her truth.
With a cast filled to the brim with A-list talent, some performers will undoubtedly fall by the wayside. Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett are two of those victims, as they both perform one-note characters who don't offer anything more than over-the-top morning show anchors (Blanchett at least has a little more to do, but with her talent, it's still not enough). Mark Rylance channels his inner Elon Musk as the tech guru, and who's performance is practically note-for-note the same as his performance as another tech guru in "Ready Player One." Timothee Chalamet has little screentime as Kate's love interest, but at least he works with what he's got.
The main four actors - Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, and Jonah Hill - are the saving grace of the film when it comes to performances. DiCaprio plays Dr. Mindy as a shy, worrisome man who can't get a sentence across at first, but allows his sex symbol status to change his whole demeanor, and not for the positive. Lawrence plays Kate as an edgy astronomer whose pain you feel considering she's about to suffer a nervous breakdown at any moment due to her world-ending news that no one wants to hear. Meryl Streep plays the President with such vigor and believably as a politician does in real life, which is absolutely terrifying. Jonah Hill pulls out the stops as a wannabe edgy millennial who's given way more power than he deserves, and hams it up to the extreme.
"Don't Look Up" is interesting in the fact that it's equal parts infuriating as well as humorous, as you really feel for Kate especially as no one seems to want to listen to her cries, and you feel her pain as she faces the fact that she - and the world - will more than likely die to the overall ineptitude of those in government positions. Again, this parallels real life as the government's handling of Covid is extremely off-putting, and they don't seem to fully know what direction to go in, leaving us average Americans lost in a sea of conspiracy theories, fearmongering, and uncertainty - which makes it all the more frightening to think if a comet like this could actually be heading our way right now, and we're blissfully ignorant of that fact due to the nature of the government and media as we know it.
While offering a satirical look as to how Americans would handle the end of the world, "Don't Look Up" is eerily reminiscent of recent times and the real-life pandemic we're facing, and while it offers comedic moments, there's elements of true terror in thinking this is probably how we would react in the event of a world-ending catastrophe.
The Score: A+
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