We’ve all seen disaster movies where whole communities, even the world, rallies together in the face of impending doom. Nations, once at odds, set aside their differences to solve a problem threatening them all and ultimately triumph over the disaster. Movies like Armageddon and Deep Impact did a good job at championing this mentality of banding together to save mankind even if they weren’t great movies on their own merits. But as the world gets increasingly more selfish and self absorbed it becomes harder to believe people, or even nations, would actually do the noble thing like those heroes in the films of old. When Worlds Collide? Would we pool resources and accomplish something like that or would people be in denial of their impending doom right up until the two planets smash into each other insisting that it couldn’t happen because the Earth is flat or that the ship built to save people is nothing more than a government hoax. I’d like to think that as a species we’re not that dumb but then I see what gets posted on social media and I start to believe that should something be hurtling through space directly at Earth, and will kill us all on impact, it would play out a lot like it does in 2021’s Don’t Look Up.
The basic plot of Don’t Look Up is very similar to that of Deep Impact in that a comet has been identified as being on a direct path to impact Earth. This comet is around nine kilometers wide and, upon impact, could potentially wipe out all life on our planet. The discoverer of the comet, Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence), a MSU doctoral candidate, alongside an Astronomy professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), take their findings to NASA and the White House where they are basically brushed off because it’s a bad time to broach this subject what with the mid-term elections on the horizon. Frustrated, Randall and Kate secure a guest spot on a popular television talk show in the hopes of spreading the word to the world but the hosts of the show (Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry) are more concerned about their ratings and keeping their program upbeat, steering the conversation away whenever the subject of the impact gets brought up.
For appearing on the show, both Kate and Randall and picked up by the FBI and brought before the President of the United States again, this time with better news. Mid-term elections have turned south thanks to a scandal and now she, the President, needs this disaster to boost her ratings in the polls. A plan is put in place to blow up the asteroid while it’s still off in the distance. This plan, however, is abruptly cancelled mid-flight when tech magnate and CEO of BASH Cellular, Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), who just so happens to be a top donor to the President, reveals that trillions of dollars worth of rare Earth materials are found on the comet and therefore it would be fiscally irresponsible not to control the crash into the planet instead of stopping it, allowing all that material to be salvaged and make the uber wealthy even more wealthy in the process. In the meantime the public is kept in the dark. Some believe Kate’s rants about the end of the world but many go into denial fueled by the media’s refusal to take the subject seriously and social media mocking Kate as a lunatic and doomsayer all the while the comet get’s closer and closer.
Don’t Look Up is a satire about our world in general. We, as a species, have gotten so into ourselves and so reliant on what we hear and read on the internet that it has created a type of hive mind mentality where we believe what our favorite programs or celebrities are saying without giving it any level of critical thought whatsoever. In our politics we subscribe to the opinions of whatever news program tells us what we want to believe and reject the others as being too far right or too liberal, too conservative, pro one political candidate or the other and that makes it impossible to get unbiased information anymore. Gone are the days where we were given just the facts instead of agenda bent rhetoric meant to sway our thoughts to a certain viewpoint. The world that existed as recently as the 1990’s, when Deep Impact was released, no longer feels like a realistic depiction of modern mankind.
The world of Don’t Look Up may be exaggerated but it also feels like a world we will soon be inhabiting. It’s a scary concept to think about, especially for our younger generation who has to live through it. This film works on several levels depending on where you are at in that generational chart. Older viewers can shake their heads at it and remember fondly Walter Cronkite being “The most trusted man in America” as he read the nightly news without an agenda. Can the same be said for today’s talking heads? Whether you are pro Fox News, CNN or MSNBC can you look at any of their top reporters and honestly say they don’t have a political leaning when they’re doing their reporting? Would any of them squash a story, no matter how important, if it meant a dip in the ratings? One needs only look back a few years at the handling of COVID-19 and climate control to get the answers to that.
The White House is treated with equal disdain. President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) is presented as a self-serving idiot, more interested in talking about how she gained in the polls by publicly embracing her smoking habit than in anything the scientists have to say about impending doom. She takes nothing seriously until it effects her chances of maintaining control of the House or Senate through the mid-terms, then, when it becomes apparent the upcoming collision is real, allows a subordinate to take the all for not acting sooner. She surrounds herself with yes men including her equally self-absorbed son and Chief of Staff, Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill) who justifies the lack of action on the abundance of doomsayers they hear from on a daily basis. The screenwriters wisely chose to make the President a woman and to avoid assigning her a political party to minimize any comparisons to modern political leaders. This is no direct stand-in for Donald Trump or Joe Biden, a choice that allows for broad satire of the office without alienating audiences identifying with one party or the other.
Mark Rylance, playing the tech billionaire, Peter, represents the wealthy who see a chance for profits in the disaster. He spins a plan to utilize his technology to break up the asteroid and mine the valuable minerals found within, claiming the vast wealth will benefit the whole world eliminating poverty but he doesn’t care about anything except himself. When, early on, he is shown on stage emulating the late Steve Jobs at a tech convention he is outright dismissive of his fans, ignoring a little girl when she proclaims her admiration of him. He has no interest in sharing any potential wealth this comet may bring. Mark Rylance isn’t directly parodying Steve Jobs or Bill Gates; if anything he’s aping his performance in Ready Player One. It doesn’t need to be a direct caricature of a real person though to get the point across. We see these billionaire CEO’s all the time in our media, hawking the latest cell phones and tablets, convincing us to spend thousands of dollars a year on minor upgrades simply because we must have the latest and greatest.
The antagonists aren’t the only ones targeted by this film. Dr. Randall and Kate don’t escape unscathed, either. Randall is easily swayed by stardom when he is invited, alongside Kate, to appear on The Daily Rip. He is seduced by Brie Evantee, co-host of the show, and her exciting lifestyle, eventually breaking up his marriage over her. Their relationship dissolves only when he ceases to be of interest to her and she casts him aside, preferring to spend her final moments in life getting drunk and trash talking people. Kate, on the other hand, repeatedly runs afoul of the law for refusing to cow tow to threats over spreading the word about the comet. One such diatribe even causes a riot when she reveals to the patrons of a restaurant that the government is more interested in preserving the materials of the comet than the lives on the planet. Eventually she will calm down and accept her fate once she finds a young man named Yule (Timothée Chalamet) who befriends her when everyone else is mocking her for being a fanatic.
Don’t Look Up doesn’t spare anyone when taking its shots. Everyone and everything is a target. For some that was too much to handle, preferring the film picked a side and focused on that. For me, that decision was dead on. This is a film about our modern world and hive mentality. As the world gets smaller and smaller, thanks to the internet and instant gratification, it becomes more and more like the one portrayed here. Will it ever get this bad? Hopefully not, but the reality is that we are headed in this direction. Celebrity culture, politics, and even basic human decency really do come second to personal perception and the almighty dollar. This film nails that satire, exaggerating things while at the same time painting a world that we can see actually becoming a reality.
Academy Award Nominations:
Best Picture: Adam McKay and Kevin Messick
Best Original Screenplay: Adam McKay and David Sirota
Best Original Score: Nicholas Brielle
Best Film Editing: Hank Corwin
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Release Date: December 10, 2021
Running Time: 138 Minutes
Rated R
Starring: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep
Directed By: Adam McKay
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