Don’t Look Up
starring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Himesh Patel, Melanie Lynskey, Cate Blanchett and Meryl Streep
screenplay by Adam McKay
directed by Adam McKay
Rating: ♦♦♦♦♦
I hated this movie. But I watched the whole thing and give it full marks because it was so good, so clever, and so well done. Even though I hated it.
Movies love to menace Earth. It’s human nature. In some of the most plausible doomsday films - Meteor (1979), Deep Impact (1998), and Armageddon (1998) - a big space rock threatens annihilation. Usually, someone finally comes to the rescue. Before the final destruction of the Earth, Don’t Look Up rockets a small group of super-rich survivalists to colonize another planet, which is pretty much what Elon Musk has talked about with his company Space X.
Honestly, humanity doesn’t seem much interested in saving the Earth, not to mention itself. So, director Scott McKay has made this angry, anguished comedy freak-out about how we’re blowing it.
Don’t Look Up pits a collection of serious scientists against a buffoonish collection of science-denying politicians, capitalists and infotainment stars who live by their polling numbers, their social media following, the Dow Jones, market share and the quarterly profit projections. I guess it’s supposed to be a parody of American society today, like Wag the Dog (1997) or something, but it feels less like parody and more like accurate reflection, which is what made me hate it.
Meryl Streep plays a mostly bored American President, Janie Orlean, who uses the crisis to divert attention from a pending mid-term election her party is likely to lose, and also attention from her porn-star boyfriend whom she is attempting to appoint to the Supreme Court. Her character makes me cringe. Donald Trump inspired her portrayal of the character, as you will see. (After he speech at the Golden Globes Awards in January 2017, Trump tweeted about Streep, “one of the most overrated actresses in Hollywood.”)
University of Michigan astronomers come to the Oval Office with a prognosis of 6-months to the Extinction Level Event threatened by a newly-discovered comet. The math is solid. The scientists aren’t wrong. But the science is politicized, the way it is in the U.S. today. Many of the President’s base even deny the existence of a comet, and reframe it as a conspiracy. No sense of urgency emanates from the White House, and the scientists become increasingly frenetic as the inevitability of the disaster approaches. Eventually, though, when the approaching rock becomes visible in the sky, both day and night, the scientists tell people just to look up to realize the truth and gravity of the situation. But in a truly Trump-like response, President Orlean urges her supporters “Don’t Look Up!” at large, deranged Trump-like rallies.
Strangely, I didn’t recognize Cate Blanchet. I knew she was in the film and I was watching for her. But by the time I realized that I’d been watching her for half an hour, I was surprised.
I enjoyed Mark Rylance. His character was creepy (I think Mark Rylance is creepy, too), but he pulled it off beautifully. The last time I saw him was when he played real-life Soviet spy Rudolf Abel in the 2015 Tom Hanks movie Bridge of Spies.
The most reprehensible character in the film is Chief of Staff Jason Orlean, the President’s son, played by Jonah Hill. He’s as bad as Donald Trump’s sons.
There are three types of American people:
the working class; the cool rich; and, them.