Movie Review: Don’t Look Up

Following the biting satire (or is it brutal depiction of reality) he explored with The Big Short (2015) and Vice (2018), director Adam McKay next takes a look at the horror of global destruction and what would happen if the elected leaders of the world were ill-equipped to deal with such peril should it somehow materialize in Don’t Look Up.

After Michigan State University graduate student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) and her professor Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) discover a startling large comet (about the size of Mt. Everest) that is on a direct path to collide with Earth, they set about trying to alert the world to the pending doom the planet faces. To achieve this, they embark on all-out media tour (because why would the people of Earth care if they were going to be obliterated if it wasn’t announced on television) that almost immediately leads them to an audience with President Orlean (Meryl Streep). The ineffective, media-obsessed Orlean, along with her unqualified, yet somehow Chief of Staff son, Jason (Jonah Hill), are as equally unshaken by the findings presented by Dibiasky and Mindy as everyone else they have already pleaded their case to. So, they take to television to spread their message, specifically on the national morning talk show The Daily Rip, hosted by Jack (Tyler Perry) and Brie (Cate Blanchett). What follows is a comical rundown of the months of preparation (or lack of preparation) before the comet arrives to destroy the planet.

Director McKay is at the top of his game with this biting satire of the last presidential administration and its ineffectiveness at dealing with a crisis of any size. McKay also wrote the script from a story by David Sirota and the filmmaker’s devotion to the material is evident throughout. Without a doubt this project comes across as a labor of love and determination to have a specific voice heard. What is most refreshing is how entertaining it is without feeling like a treatise on exactly how awful the filmmaker (and, more than likely, the audience) views his subject. At its core, there is a simplistic truth to Don’t Look Up that suggests if we simply all employed a little common sense many of the conflicts depicted within the film would cease to exist.

From left: Jonah Hill, Leonardo DiCaprio, Meryl Streep, and Jennifer Lawrence in “Don’t Look Up.”

As the heroic couple trying to alert the world to the coming disaster, DiCaprio and Lawrence are up to the task. Each exchanging looks of disbelief and confusion with one another and of frustration with those who tend to dismiss their claims as something not really worth the time to worry about. As Dr. Mindy gets caught up in the celebrity of his position, instead of the gravity of everyone’s situation, he drifts away from Dibiasky, who eventually resigns herself to the fate of the planet and looks to live life to fullest until the bitter end by hooking up with a young man named Yule (Timothée Chalamet).

Streep and Hill are both outstanding as the political dimwits in charge of steering the country through this crisis, as they emerge so shortsighted as to only care about their images beyond the next few days rather than the fact that there may, in fact, be no more days left to anyone. Too numerous to mention are the myriad actors that comprise McKay’s supporting cast, but include stellar work by the likes of: Ron Perlman, Mark Rylance, and even Ariana Grande.

Don’t Look Up is easily one of McKay’s most topical, and important, films to date. It is also one of his most entertaining and, quite possibly, best as well.

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Mike Tyrkus

Editor in Chief at CinemaNerdz.com

An independent filmmaker, co-writer and director of over a dozen short films, the Editor in Chief of CinemaNerdz.com has spent much of the last three decades as a writer and editor specializing in biographical and critical reference sources in literature and the cinema, beginning in February 1991 reviewing films for his college newspaper. He was a member of the Detroit Film Critics Society, as well as the group's webmaster and one-time President for over a decade until the group ceased to exist. His contributions to film criticism can be found in Magill's Cinema Annual, VideoHound's Golden Movie Retriever (of which he was the editor for nearly a decade until it too ceased to exist), the International Dictionary of Films and Filmmakers, and the St. James Film Directors Encyclopedia (on which he collaborated with editor Andrew Sarris). He has also appeared on the television program Critic LEE Speaking alongside Lee Thomas of FOX2 and Adam Graham, of The Detroit News. He currently lives in the Detroit area with his wife and their dogs.

@miketyrkus

Mike Tyrkus

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