“You guys discovered a comet? That's so dope. I have a tattoo of a shooting star on my back.”
It is entirely possible to care about pop culture and the climate crisis. Just because you are interested in a celebrity break up or a subpar movie on Netflix doesn’t mean you have no concern for the condition of the world and its future. These things are not mutually exclusive. Neither are comedy and serious issues, or even comedy and earnestness. With Don’t Look Up it seems that director Adam McKay and co-writer David Sirota believe that such concerns are an either/or matter and their film vacillates between comedy and stone-cold seriousness. A balance is never found. Don’t Look Up aims to be a satire on the level of Stanley Kubrick's Dr. Strangelove—a worthy goal, especially for a film meant to be about climate change. However, to satirize the Cold War, Kubrick made a film that was actually about how a nuclear Armageddon could happen because of foolish politicians and in spite of the best efforts of concerned individuals. To satirize the blending of news and entertainment, Paddy Chayefsky wrote a movie about the blending of news and entertainment, Network. To tackle the climate crisis, Don’t Look Up gives us an allegory full of unfocused anger lashing out at everyone, audience included. Instead of commentary on contemporary culture (both political and pop) we get condescension. Recent years have made satire even more difficult to do effectively. You need to use a scalpel. McKay uses a sledgehammer.
In an ironic wasting of resources, an all-star cast is assembled and squandered. One night a young astronomer, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), discovers a massive comet. Her mentor, Dr. Mindy(Leonardo DiCaprio), does calculations and realizes the comet is heading right for Earth and will cause an extinction level event in six months. They alert NASA’s head of Planetary Defense, Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan, in one of the film’s two standout performances), who takes them to see President Orlean (Meryl Streep), a female stand-in for Donald Trump (or any of his acolytes). Neither she nor her incompetent son and chief of staff (Jonah Hill) are concerned with the comet and decide to do nothing until they need to distract from a scandal and help with the midterm elections. The mission to blow up the comet is called off when an oddball tech-billionaire (Mark Rylance)—in full SNL host shoved into a weird character and just following direction mode—realizes the comet is full of minerals to make electronics. His plan is to send machines to mine the comet right before it hits Earth. Everything goes how you expect.
The only characters that feel like actual people are Rob Morgan as Dr. Oglethorpe and Melanie Lynskey, as Dr. Mindy’s wife—the second standout performance of the film. Overall, every part is well played. It’s no surprise that Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, Mark Rylance, Melanie Lynskey, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Timothee Chalamet, and Ron Perlman do their jobs well, but you know that each performer could’ve done more.
Throughout the movie I kept asking myself: am I supposed to laugh? I am not shy about dark comedy or gallows humor but the broad jokes and intense seriousness whiplash against each other and I don’t know how the movie wants me to feel. Certain moments seemed to lampoon the manufactured sincerity of scenes from movies like Michael Bay’s Armageddon, but Don’t Look Up isn’t a disaster movie parody. Later, it uses those same techniques, sincerely this time, to make sure its gut-punch of an ending hits hard.
Just as with Vice, McKay’s biopic of Dick Cheney revealing how Cheney was a terrible person and dangerous politician, my reaction to Don’t Look Up is: I already know. I knew it then, I know it now. I already experience persistent unrelenting existential dread about this all the time. I can’t imagine that this movie would be the straw that finally broke a climate denier’s back and made them “look up.” Everyone that already acknowledges the ever increasing and undeniable effects of climate change is in for a depressing, humorless, masochistic experience. Don’t Look Up is dull satire with stale jokes, full of repeated observations and no new insights. So why do I need this movie, especially if it is not even very funny?
Tapping into the anxieties of the zeitgeist with extremely thinly veiled allegories and metaphors was the forte of master storyteller Rod Serling with The Twilight Zone. Even when Serling appeared at the end of an episode and directly told you the themes and moral of the story, neither he nor the episode had a hint of condescension or scorn. Many episodes were so well executed that they remain loaded with pathos. I mention this only to point out that making a razor thin allegory to affect and entertain is possible. I wish it happened more often. It does not happen in Don’t Look Up.
Nominees: Adam McKay, Kevin J. Messick, producers
Director: Adam McKay
Screenplay: Adam McKay, story by David Sirota
Cast: Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep
Release Date: December 10th, 2021
Production Companies: Hyperobject Industries, Bluegrass Films
Distributor: Netflix
Total Nominations: 4, including Best Picture
Other Nominations: Original Screenplay-Adam McKay, David Sirota; Editing-Hank Corwin; Original Score-Nicholas Britell
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