Don’t Look Up Review

And the award for Most Cynical Movie of 2021 goes to… 

Don’t Look Up is the latest genre-defying dark comedy from the very specific mind of Writer/Director Adam McKay. The film paints a bleak portrait of humanity through its satire, reveling in the worst of our impulses with its tale of scientific denial, greed, and apathy. When a PhD student (Jennifer Lawrence) discovers a comet on a direct collision course with Earth, she and her professor (Leonardo DiCaprio) go on a campaign to alert the world to take action to prevent our extinction. They are, of course, met with a resounding indifference from a society more interested in celebrity gossip than the scientifically proven fact that their deaths are imminent. Composed with the same high-energy angry-humor McKay is now most known for, Don’t Look Up is the feel-bad movie of the season. 

I’m a fan of Adam McKay’s recent string of dramedies. I particularly remember being blown away by The Big Short’s fusion of style and substance. It felt wholly original, and unlike anything I’d seen before, and both it and his Dick Cheney biopic Vice were among my favorite films of their respective years. Of course, it could be said that he has become somewhat one-note, with all three of his most recent films feeling stylistically identical. To me, though, it’s a compelling style that no other filmmaker is really going for, so I’m mostly here for it. Unfortunately for Don’t Look Up, it’s also a style that seems best used in service of true stories that are stranger than fiction. Cutaway jokes about fact-checking lines of dialogue seemed out of place in a fictional story and made it hard to tell when the film was joking and when it was being based in fact. This all culminated to make a movie that is tonally similar to Vice and The Big Short but is significantly messier.

The film itself is going for a sort of modern update on a Dr. Strangelove-type satire, updating the specifics of who and what is currently destroying humanity. Here, the President (Meryl Streep) is a scandal-ridden, alt-right media figure, more concerned with her popularity than the good of the people she serves. Her supporters are just as bad, adopting the film’s titular phrase as an anti-science slogan against the obviously visible threat in the sky. The cable news networks are obsessed with DiCaprio’s characters looks more than his message, and the internet trolls turn Jennifer Lawrence’s character into a misogynistic meme. If you think all of that sounds less like a comedy and more like a grim commentary on the times we’re living in, then you’d be correct. The difference between Don’t Look Up and the societal satires that came before it? Our current moment is nearly impossible to satirize. 

As an American, I can tell you that, yes- this movie is an accurate depiction of how the US would react to finding out the world is ending. So why is this supposed to be viewed as funny?   We have devolved into such madness that you have to really heighten the absurdity of the situation in order for your satire to effectively mock reality. It’s the same reason why Saturday Night Live isn’t as funny as it used to be. What we consider normal has gotten so insane over the past five years, and it’s hard to joke when you know your joke might come true. Post-Trump satire is nearly impossible. Don’t Look Up is a perfect mirror of where we are right now, and that’s really hard to laugh about the way McKay wants us to.

There are bright spots, of course. The score and editing are both top-tier works certain to be remembered come awards season. McKay has also assembled an all-star cast (featuring Timothée Chalamet, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, and Cate Blanchett, just to name a few) all of whom bring their A-game, wringing as much humor as is possible to get out of the very real situation the film presents. Not to mention the brilliant protest song Grande’s character performs towards the film’s climax. There’s a lot of good ingredients, it just doesn’t come together in the way the filmmakers had hoped.

The successful satirical takes on humanity’s darkness always offer some kind of a glimmer of hope to go out on. From The Great Dictator to Parasite, these films show us what we can do to be better. Either implicitly through the narrative or overtly through the dialogue, these movies make the case for what should be done to prevent these stories from happening in real life. Don’t Look Up doesn’t give us that. Don’t Look Up informs us, in the snarkiest manner possible, that we are all utterly screwed. While I somewhat respect that approach, it simply doesn’t make for a particularly inspiring or entertaining watch.