By Seth Lukas Hynes
Don’t Look Up
Starring Leonardo Dicaprio, Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep
Rated M
Don’t Look Up is a clever, well-paced sci-fi dark comedy that holds a warped mirror on science and politics in our real world.
Astronomers Randall Mindy (Leonardo Dicaprio) and Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover a gigantic comet on a collision course with Earth, but face a losing battle in their efforts to deflect the comet.
Don’t Look Up’s depiction of modern America is exaggerated and often funny but still feels disturbingly real.
The film is very well-structured, quickly establishing a dire threat, then presenting possible solutions and serious obstacles. Director Adam McKay thus does a brilliant job of building hope to counter the despair, then yanking it away.
Government apathy, social media-choked culture and the saccharine media downplaying the crisis for ratings all visibly weigh upon the main characters. Randall is bewitched by the innovation and glamour of the industrial machine, driving away his friends as the comet draws closer. Meryl Streep acts delightfully off-type as the vain, greedy President Orlean, who is the closest this film has to a villain.
Don’t Look Up shows admirable support for expert opinion and the scientific method. The wilful ignorance and political spin Randall and Kate struggle against feel all too familiar, reflecting the fraught discourse over climate change and the Covid pandemic.
The film has some abrupt editing and a strange reliance on freeze-frames and stock footage. The technology satire is less focused than the media and political satire, and the climax has a fanciful twist that clashes with the relatively grounded tone.
Despite some bizarre editing and some underdeveloped aspects in its satire, Don’t Look Up is a tense, well-directed and socially-relevant dark comedy, and is available for streaming on Netflix.
– Seth Lukas Hynes
