Adam McKay’s Don’t Look Up is an allegory for the times we live in where doom looms around the corner and directly in front of us, yet our leaders sat there and did nothing. Worse still, those who bring the news of the potential for an extension level event, are bucked by the White House and a president (Meryl Streep) whose denial and questioning of scientific evidence that is fact is reminiscent of a certain former president whose actions have led to over 750,000 Americans died.
Trump’s attitude towards the Coronavirus is felt throughout McKay’s masterpiece as scientists (played by Leonardo DiCaprio—as Dr. Randall Mindy and Jennifer Lawrence as Ph.D. candidate Kate Dibiasky) have discovered a comet the size of 7 kilometers that is on a direct path to earth and will most certainly lead to the wiping out of life on the planet we love so dear and call home.
After their horrific discovery, their first inclining is to alert those in charge. Quicky, NASA gets involved, and before you can blink, Dr. Mindy and Kate race to the White House to meet with President Orlean and her crack team of experts—including her truly clueless son Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill).
As teased in the Don’t Look Up trailer, President Orleans decides to “sit on it” and let that news marinate. The scientists and those who have confirmed their research have established that an extinction-level event is eminent in around six months.
Mindy and Dibiasky cannot believe the utter incompetence and lack of basic understanding of the most basic of issues—the continuation of the human race—exhibited by those who are in charge of guaranteeing the safety of the American people and to a larger extent the larger world at large. Faced with this information, they decide to leak it to the press—even though they are under strict NDA with the White House.
There, they meet a Kelly & Ryan (played by mind-blowing perfection by Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett) type program where they are just as clueless about the impending doom that they are describing. The only things established from this interview are that Mindy is a “hot astronomer” and Dibiasky is “frantic and crazy.”
Utterly flowered at the loss of the message on the masses who are more concerned with the latest cell phone and all it can do to improve our lives from an Apple-type company lead, Peter Isherwell (played otherworldly by Oscar winner Mark Rylance’s). Mindy and Diabiasky continue their assault on the truth—if for no other reason than to save their own hides and those they love and care about. Plus, it’s the humane thing to do.
The indifference to what is going on is blindingly enraging. But will certainly remind us of a time we live in where science is treated as part of the many things considered before making a decision instead of the final word when it comes to scientific landscapes where the future of the human race is on the line. Yet, all one has to do is look at the headlines in newspapers or cable news and local news that this is our new normal. With news on either side of the aisle, instead of impartial that like the third estate is supposed to be residing.
Since the removal by Ronald Reagan in the Fairness Doctrine, the birth of Fox News and its ilk have proliferated. It is no question that since that moment our deathly division commenced and has only gotten exponentially worse.
Don’t Look Up may change the subject matter—impacting extinction-level event—but it could be about another number of life-threatening real crises that permeate our current society. From Coronavirus to climate change that has happened more rapidly than ever dreamed in our worst nightmares. There is a disease permeating national news and that is a need to show both sides, with one of the sides is lying, misrepresenting the truth, and spreading misinformation in such a rapid matter that it almost seems hopeless.
McKay does something remarkable with his storytelling. This is hard news. His stories are grounded in pretty horrific societal ills—such as The Big Short—which chronicle the preventable 2008 economic crash that resulted in the Great Recession and birthed President Barack Obama. But what McKay does is never lose his comedic upbringing and training.
He has also got a cast that is game for his endeavor. There’s a piercing opinion to McKay’s films including Vice, and with a cast like Rogen, Streep, DiCaprio, Lawrence, Blanchett, and Perry… everything is working at eclipsing excellence and its click in every way possible.
Everything about Don’t Look Up is done from the point of view of satire. It’s biting satire, but still, there is humor and humanness that permeate every inch of every frame. It’s a whole lot easier to take the news of the end of the world when you are laughing at the ridiculousness of it all.
Grade: A+