If the careers of Michael Bay (Armageddon) and Roland Emmerich (2012) have taught us anything it’s that disaster movies are perfect popcorn movie fodder. But few films about disasters or extinction-level events treat them the way thatDon’t Look Updoes. Director Adam Mckay, who is best known for satirical dramas based on true events (The Big Short, Vice), strikes a similar tone but with a fictional circumstance. He taps the same comedic vein as his past work but paints a picture that feels depressingly accurate. WhileThe Big ShortandViceare comedic retrospectives framed through the lens of survival (i.e. American society made it through this),Don’t Look Upsuggests humanity won’t make it through such an event alive…and he may not be wrong.
Astronomers Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) discover that a massive comet is headed towards Earth and will strike the planet in about 6 months. It is a crippling discovery forDiCaprio and Lawrence’s charactersbecause of its extinction level implications, and they are quick to consult NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office head Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Jordan) about the next steps. In any other movie, Dibiasky and Mindy bring the information to the President, they call up Bruce Willis and a team of oil drillers, and the planet is saved 2 hours later. InDon’t Look Up, the answer isn’t so simple.
Adam McKay clearly was inspired by the Trump Administration when it came to his depiction of the White House. When Dibiasky and Mindy consult President Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep) there isn’t immediate concern or a plan of action. Instead, Orlean considers the political timing of announcing such an event and how it will impact her numbers. It’s a response that might have seemed comical a few years ago and yet is frustratingly prescient. McKay’s prior work typically features exaggerated versions of real characters but this time the exaggerated characters feel real.
Exaggerated or not,Don’t Look Upexplores how politicians, the media, and everyday citizens would respondto catastrophic news. It’s the type of film where the main characters are so mortified by the response of politicians and the media that they can’t help but curse and scream. And yet they end up being the ones vilified for their actions. There is so much about McKay’s depiction of, frankly, everything that rings true. It’s depressing even - to have to watch seemingly sane scientists lose their minds over the fact that no one is taking them seriously.
Nevertheless,Don’t Look Upis still endlessly funny in the way it navigates a series of scenarios that are more unbelievable (and yet somehow still believable) than the next. IfViceandBig Shortstruck a chord with you, thenDon’t Look Upis sure to be another home run from McKay. The one universal criticism is that the film doesn’t make any of its major characters very likable. Jennifer Lawrence’s Dibiasky is the closest thing to the voice of reason amidst the chaos and absurdity, but her storyline takes a strange left turn midway through. Maybe it’s by design that we aren’t supposed to sympathize with anyone. Perhaps it allows some much-needed distance from subject matter that regularly strikes too close to home. Without question, though, the cast commits to these caricatures in a way that it’s scary. Streep’s performance is so big without feeling inaccurate, Jonah Hill plays her son with the same offputting bravado as Trump Jr., and Cate Blanchett is a perfect representative of the type of disillusioned, self-absorbed talk show hosts that litter the cable networks.
Don’t Look Upis stressful for all the wrong reasons. The tension builds not because there is concern that the good guys won’t stop the comet but because no one in power seems willing to stop it. For some viewers, the film isn’t going to work simply because of its satirical tone and exaggerated premise, but McKay has tapped into something whose veracity should scare anyone. Without terrific performances, the film would have crumbled under the weight of the underlying themesDon’t Look Upis trying to get it. But McKay’s script and direction find that no balance is the right recipe for making this unique brand of disaster movie work.
