McKay’s Don’t Look Up is bold, daring and intelligent filmmaking that asks you to question the world we have created and the world we want to be; it is satire at its most divisive, and that is something we should all celebrate. Don’t Look Up is now showing on Netflix.
Nothing divides cinema audiences more than satire as it holds a mirror to our collective behaviours, attitudes, likes and dislikes, while asking us to face the sheer ridiculousness of human behaviour and history. From Dr Strangelove to Jojo Rabbit and The Death of Stalin, an array of critical opinions can be found, ranging from “I loved it” to “I hated every minute of it.” But that’s the very point of satire: it challenges the safety net we have built around our ideologies, beliefs, or ideas, and Adam McKay’s new apocalyptic comedy, Don’t Look Up, will equally divide opinion.
With a cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, Ariana Grande, Mark Rylance, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet and Jennifer Lawrence, to name just a few, nobody could accuse McKay of skimping on the talent, and one can only guess at the levels of stress the casting director, Francine Maisler, faced. But the very fact that so many big names decided to put themselves front and centre highlights the power of Hollywood feeling when it comes to climate denial and the ever-growing risk of America lurching toward political extremes (notably the Christian right), a move that would only increase climate denial in a country built on oil and gas.
Don’t Look Up reimagines the classic world-ending asteroid story to critique our inaction on the real threat facing us, climate catastrophe, as scientific knowledge is labelled as ‘fake’ and common sense is replaced with ideological nonsense that dribbles from the mouths of people who believe they are invulnerable to anything due to the flag they sit behind. Don’t Look Up will divide opinions, there’s no doubt in that, so let’s start with something we can all agree on: the world is pretty fucked up!
I know this may sound overly negative, but let’s look at the past twenty years. In that time, humanity has become slaves to smartphones and social chatter while equally becoming a lonelier place. Meanwhile, politics has disappeared down a rabbit hole of culture wars, soundbites and lies, and our media has become transfixed by the court of public opinion and celebrity. This is a world where we regularly cancel and delete people we disagree with while elevating others to celebrity status for a simple dance on TikTok. It’s a world where slogans form political policy, from “Make America Great Again” to “Get BREXIT Done“. We all buy into this world and contribute to its continuation by believing that “this is progress.” Therefore, it’s no surprise that we struggle to find solutions to our most pressing problems, from climate change to widening inequality.
If all this sounds rather bleak, then Don’t Look Up probably isn’t the right film for you because it’s within these very discussions that Adam McKay’s brilliant and cutting satire finds its voice in a comedy that provides us with a sharp dissection of politics, media, human behaviour and climate change denial. Love it or hate it, I don’t mind, but watch it and decide for yourselves whether our modern world is one of progress and hope or selfishness, greed and social division. McKay’s movie is bold, daring and intelligent filmmaking that asks you to question the world we have created and the world we want to be; it is satire at its most divisive, and that is something we should all celebrate.
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