I’ll start with a little synopsis.
A Trump-ish president (Meryl Streep) capitalizes on the global panic created by an incoming comet nine kilometers wide. The impending demise of our planet is first realized by two astronomers (Leo and Jennifer Lawrence) who quickly rise to national attention with their discovery. Though they try to explain to anyone who will listen that the world has six months to live before the comet hits, Leo and Jennifer are quickly chewed up and spit out by critical social media outlets and glib television hosts, who test their ability in helping the country understand that everything- literally, everything- is at stake. The concept is great, which is why I wanted to see it in the first place. But how does Don’t Look Up really land?
Well, the results are pretty mixed. At times we have a scathing commentary on social media vapidness and greed that hits the mark with its jabs. Other times, it overshoots the making fun. But when it scathes, the movie does do its job rather well.
Perhaps post-Trump pandemic America needed this movie to remind us all of the inevitability of death that is larger than our own bad luck and misfortune? I don’t know.
The script is at least a solid good, with some stellar supporting performances by Jonah Hill, Timothee Chalamet, and Hank Azaria.
However, with what the plot moves against (comet with the strength of “ten Hiroshimas”) I suppose it’s easy to not get very invested in any of the characters at all.
Don’t Look Up has a lot of fun things going for it. It evokes the film nerd in me with its callbacks to doomsday movies like Kubrick’s Dr. Strangelove but it definitely isn’t for us all. Anyone carrying a merry Christmas hangover is advised to wait until the January blues have hit before putting this one on. It’ll break your spirit, but sharp witty dialogue will have you laughing enough to distract from the depressing social commentaries it offers up.
A solid B; let’s call it an eighty-two percent out of a hundred. The special effects and pointed performances largely carry Adam McKay’s film, a combination I never thought I’d reference on any review.
