Don't Look Up (2021)

By: Mike Ward on Saturday, January 22

R Running Time: 138 mins

SHOULD I SEE IT?

YES

Don’t Look Up features Adam McKay’s distinctive and satirical style grappling with the idea that a massive asteroid’s impending collision with Earth will end all of humankind. As many love the film as they do hate it.
The cast is a “Night of 1,000 Stars”-style cavalcade, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence leading a robust ensemble of people who clearly love working with the writer and director.
McKay’s film is pointed and direct in reflecting a particular mirror back on society that says we are all self-absorbed and do not care for anyone other than ourselves. That’s a bold place to frame a comedy…

NO

…And it is precisely that approach that has caused some to believe Don’t Look Up is little more than smug, arrogant, and condescending. Of note: There are many others who absolutely love everything it says. Mileage may vary.
The film’s intentions are clear I suppose, but the construction is messy and the film’s massive cast sometimes seem out of place or even miscast.
If you are not a fan of McKay’s The Big Short and/or Vice, you are likely going to despise Don’t Look Up. You could even despise it even if you are a fan - it is just that kind of movie.

OUR REVIEW

Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up is a cannon shot across the bow of our cultural divisiveness and attempts to shine a mirror back upon society. A bleak, dark satire, critics have largely panned the film while audiences are raving about it.

After a two-week theatrical run in December 2021, the film became a massive hit on Netflix and has since become the second most successful film in Netflix history. Within 48 hours of its platform premiere on Christmas Eve, my Facebook feed exploded with positive comments, ranging from “This is the movie we need right now” to “Best Movie of the Year” to “Everyone should watch this!” On the heels of The Big Short and Vice, McKay’s latest comedy goes hyperbolic with an A-list cast, a lot to say, and three different endings.

Hyperbole is basically the point. Set in a world where an asteroid is months away from impacting earth and creating an extinction-level event, you can take the idea of an asteroid hitting earth and replace it with climate change, COVID-19, the January 6th insurrection or any crisis impacting our country. The point is the apathy and selfishness of a nation focused on itself, and no longer caring about their neighbors, friends, or others.

Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence star as Dr. Randall Mindy and Kate Dibiasky, respectively, who are astronomers working at Michigan State University. Dibiasky discovers a near-Earth asteroid and charts its collision course with our planet. Dr. Mindy helps bring the findings to NASA, who confirm the reality facing the planet.

What occurs next is a series of decisions to determine how to inform the public. The Trump-like President Orlean (Meryl Streep) is dismissive, putting off a meeting with Mindy and Dibiasky because other things are deemed more important. When a sex scandal implicates the President, under advisement of her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason (Jonah Hill), the White House finally agrees to acknowledge the news of the asteroid to deflect from the scandal, though Mindy and Dibiasky have been trying to discuss the story for days on a national morning news program.

Throughout all of these events, McKay’s screenplay shows a number of diversions and random observations and incidental news stories which take attention away from the news of the asteroid.

I’ll pause here to mention that Don’t Look Up sets up its plot and premise very early on and paints itself into a corner by about the 15-minute mark. What unfolds is the same pattern repeating itself. Mindy and Dibiasky trying to be heard and people ignoring them.

McKay’s film is angry. And perhaps it has every right to be. I get that anger though: Whether it is COVID, climate change, or anything else, Don’t Look Up is pointing the finger at all of us and declaring that sanctimony only leads to inactivity and self-satisfaction. By attempting to show us our ridiculousness and calling out political tribalism, the point gets made. It just gets made again and again and again. And again some more.

DiCaprio is subtle and steady, building to a moment that resembles that of Peter Finch’s portrayal of Howard Beale in the classic 1976 satire, “Network.” As DiCaprio’s Dr. Mindy delivers his “Mad as hell and not going to take it anymore!” speech, we have seen him seduced into a world of celebrity that leads to an affair with talk show host Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett), and finds him receiving (and accepting) all the credit for Dibiasky’s discovery.

Lawrence is a whole damn mood and stands in for the “sensible” voice trying to get people’s attention by continually being aghast at people’s insensitivity. She snaps frequently, but also is relegated to the background as Dr. Mindy willingly takes all the credit.

McKay clearly has become an actor’s director, by the sheer volume of talent who want to work with him. Mark Rylance meanders his way through the film as a stuttered, stunted genius billionaire, while Ron Perlman shows up as a Colonel given the hero’s assignment of diverting the comet through flight in a spaceship. And we also have Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Melanie Lynskey, Himesh Patel, Michael Chiklis, Rob Morgan, and Sarah Silverman popping into this cavalcade of stars.

As TikTok memes and social media challenges emerge and everything except the asteroid makes the news, Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi pop in as a boyfriend/girlfriend music duo who at first have a public breakup, then a public reconciliation, and then create an anthemic pop song that everyone loves for all the wrong reasons.

Visual effects are largely impressive and the film is assisted through an effective score from Nicholas Britell. Shifting with the film’s often manic energy, Britell veers from traditional orchestral compositions to synth-laden electronica, jazzy snippets, and even some off-kilter, light-hearted interludes.

Some will be seeing this message for the first time and struck by the revelations McKay shows us. Others will grow resentful of the tone and smugness, feeling like this is obvious, on-the-nose and insulting. If McKay succeeds at anything, it is identifying the self-righteousness so many embrace as freedom and liberty, as well as the justification for actions that largely seem self-indulgent and harmful.

Whether the lukewarm reactions from critics is indicative of a furthering of the critic/audience divide, I’m not sure. The film has a growing number of impassioned fans, who could care less of the critical reactions the film is getting. What I am sure of is that perhaps the aggravation of a movie like Don’t Look Up is a good thing, creating a piece of art we should talk about and consider on a wider scale.

And yet - the biggest disappointment in McKay’s 140-minute satire is that it lives on the surface of everything it is telling us. Because here is the reality:

As we normalize disavowing science, politicize people’s efforts to keep themselves and others safe from an unrelenting pandemic, claim that white people are victims of racism, freak out and cause alarm about “Critical Race Theory” while being unable to define what it is, conflate a civil rights movement with someone’s chosen job, claim that elections are stolen with zero evidence that any malfeasance has occurred, and demonize anyone who thinks differently than we do, then, asteroid or otherwise, nothing really matters anymore.

CAST & CREW

Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, Michael Chiklis, Paul Guilfoyle, Robert Radochia, Conor Sweeney, Liev Schreiber, Sarah Silverman, Ashleigh Banfield, Chris Evans

Director: Adam McKay
Written by: Adam McKay; Adam McKay, David Sirota (story)
Release Date: December 10, 2021
Netflix

Don’t Look Up features Adam McKay’s distinctive and satirical style grappling with the idea that a massive asteroid’s impending collision with Earth will end all of humankind. As many love the film as they do hate it.

The cast is a “Night of 1,000 Stars”-style cavalcade, with Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence leading a robust ensemble of people who clearly love working with the writer and director.

McKay’s film is pointed and direct in reflecting a particular mirror back on society that says we are all self-absorbed and do not care for anyone other than ourselves. That’s a bold place to frame a comedy…

…And it is precisely that approach that has caused some to believe Don’t Look Up is little more than smug, arrogant, and condescending. Of note: There are many others who absolutely love everything it says. Mileage may vary.

The film’s intentions are clear I suppose, but the construction is messy and the film’s massive cast sometimes seem out of place or even miscast.

If you are not a fan of McKay’s The Big Short and/or Vice, you are likely going to despise Don’t Look Up. You could even despise it even if you are a fan - it is just that kind of movie.