From the far reaches of the Milky Way Galaxy, It's Retro Nerd Girl with a film review for you.
Today I'll be reviewing the movie Don’t Look Up released in 2001.
Starring:
Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep
Directed by:
Adam McKay
Genre:
Comedy, Drama, Sci-Fi
Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) Rating:
R
Budget:
75 million USD
Current IMDb Rating When Reviewed:
7.3
Don’t Look has been one of the most talked about and most watched films in December 2021 and January 2022. If you haven’t seen it yet, I urge you to do so before watching more of this video because I am going to talk about spoilers. If you don’t mind spoilers, keep on watching.
I will start out by saying that I heard scathing reviews for this film and on the other hand I heard high praises. I had to see this for myself.
Although I have some technical criticisms about the film, I really had a good time with this one. I couldn’t stop laughing at a subject matter that I would typically be seriously disturbed about. I didn’t think I would enjoy that, but I thought it was awkwardly delightful, hilariously poking fun at an exaggerated version of real life.
Jennifer Lawrence plays Kate Dibiasky, an astronomy PHD candidate who discovered a comet at Michigan State University. After alerting professor, Dr. Randall Mindy of the comet and celebrating it, the team discovers that this comet is headed directly toward earth in an extinction level event in six months.
As to the real threat of comets or asteroids of that size hitting the earth, scientists say we are in the clear for another 100 years or more. NASA has a similar plan as the ones proposed in the film to hit the asteroid with a high impact object to change the trajectory. This could potentially all happen with the public ever knowing about it.
Even if a large meteor of the size described in the movie would hit the planet, it would not be as simple as lights out, everybody’s gone. The film got that wrong. The impact and surrounding area would be leveled, but the rest of the world would be affected by the dust created from the impact in the air covering the sun and a drastic cooling of the planet within a few months and years ahead. Surely, humans could be quite resourceful to figure out how to survive, but it would be devastating. Billions of lives would be lost.
The filmmakers have blatantly said that this film is not about comets at all, but an allegory for climate change and the threat of global warming.
When watching the film you don’t necessarily see climate change as the obvious message. However, you know it’s trying to tell you something about the state of affairs in our world, particularly in America. The film accidentally does represent an excellent allegory for the pandemic, which we are still going through.
The funny thing is that the film was actually conceived before the pandemic and filmed during it.
The allegory is more fluid than climate change, and can be used to represent a number of issues. Many movies have done this type of social commentary are films like Dr. Strangelove dealing with nuclear arms, Zero Theorem where it criticizes the gamification of our world, Mars Attacks dealing with the absurdity of how we would handle a hostile alien invasion and Idiocracy dealing with the fear of society’s dwindling intelligence in a proposed future world. As I mentioned in my review of Idiocracy, the more and more we notice Idiocracy in our world, the less funny it is and as Idiocracy, it had mixed reviews when it was released.
Perhaps in ten years we’ll identify with the film even more, but I hope we don’t. I hope we do make stronger attempts to preserve our planet. According to real world scientists we have about ten years to try to undo some of the damage of climate change before it becomes irreversible.
Whether you believe there is a threat or not is your own choice, but it couldn’t hurt to preserve our planet so it remains beautiful and bountiful. Planting more trees than we cut, going paperless, solar energy, electric cars, recycling, reducing carbon footprints and reducing emissions are a few things we are trying to do right now.
It’s not enough because the solar ice caps are melting into the ocean and we are facing more hurricanes, tornados and extreme weather than we ever have. There was a horrible snow storm in Texas last year. So it is evident that something bigger is at play here and perhaps with the cooperation of scientists, engineers and funding we can use different methods to combat this issue.
The thing that I’m really happy about is that this film is getting us to have a conversation about this subject, even for those who hate Don’t Look Up. We are talking about it, so bravo to the filmmakers for that. I watch so many movies that say absolutely nothing, so I always enjoy movies that give us something to talk about even if it is controversial.
Along with the satirical jokes and obvious funny gags the film gives you a fist full of drama which is an odd mix. This is what sets it apart from other similar films. It’s poking fun at our world, but is it? Some of this stuff is hitting close to home. This is what puts a big smile on my face. It’s a different kind of narrative.
Wait a minute, now that I think of it, Idiocracy had a small climate change message too. Other movies with a climate change message are Wall-E 2008, Water World 1995, Soylent Green 1973, Snowpiercer 2013, The Lorax 2012, and Zero Population Growth 1972. I’m sure there are more, but those are the ones I could think of right off the bat.
Another interesting factor of the film is that it has a stunning star studded cast of five Oscar winners, (Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, Meryl Streep, and Mark Rylance), and two Oscar nominees, (Timothée Chalamet and Jonah Hill).
They all do an amazing job with the script that Adam McKay, the director, wrote from David Sirota’s story.
To me, there was something very charming about all of the dialogue and the way everything is put together. I say “to me”, because there were a lot of people who hated it. It’s not for everyone. Some of the clunky dialogue and zoom-ins to responses were done simplistically and added to the awkwardness I find hilariously occurs in real life.
There were quite a few shots that were not in focus and not in frame and I loved the chaotic feeling of those cinematic choices. I really do. Part of loving the art of filmmaking for me is the visual part, the visual choices storytellers decide to use. It is the additional stimuli that makes it a full rounded experience for me.
Now I want to talk about the characters because there is so much conversation or even debate about the ham-fisted message in the movie and not a whole lot of talk about this squad of characters who are genuinely fascinating.
The focus of the movie shares screen time between the smart and rebellious Kate Dibiasky and Dr. Randall Mindy, the family man who endures his moral downfall while trying to save the world. Leonardo DiCaprio plays the doctor in a way I had never seen him on screen before. He’s a very meek, understated soft spoken character with an addiction to medical drugs for his chronic anxiety. There was something so sweet and naïve about him that was relatable.
Kate on the other hand, has no time for BS and immediately loses her cool with the media and the public, but Randall tries to play the game until he finally realizes that everyone is on their own agenda and not interested in doing what he believes to be the right thing.
Jennifer Lawrence came out of retirement for this film and she proves what a strong actress she is. She dives into her character’s frustration with knowing what she knows about the impact and feeling so helpless against a world that doesn't appreciate what she's doing or even believe what she is telling them.
Many climate change scientists have said how much they appreciate this film because it accurately describes their efforts to get the media and politicians to acknowledge their data. This film provides that sense of desperation in these two scientists who are just freaking out, literally screaming and yelling into the camera, looking directly at us, breaking the fourth wall, “We are going to die if we don’t do something now!”
A lot of critics and reviewers have said that the screaming feels as if the characters are screaming at the audience or maybe even over preaching to the choir. I can see that, but I felt that it was more character building. Randall and Kate are acting appropriately.
These two people have reached their limit as to how much they are able to pretend everything is going to be ok. It makes me think of the movie, Network, with the line, “I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it any more”. And this makes sense because Leonardo said that this was his inspiration for Randall’s on air blow out. Brilliant!
I remember there was a time in the 1980’s and 1990’s when there was a serious concern about nuclear doomsday and I had horrible, horrible nightmares like Sarrah Connor in T2. Oh they were bad and that kind of thing was pretty much and still is in the hands of world leaders. I think personally I have learned to live with that fact and not obsess about it anymore, but it doesn't mean the problem is not still there.
Another aspect of frustration for Randall and Kate is most importantly being understood because of all of the math and scientific jargon they need to explain their data. Everything has to be broken down to its simplest form.
I loved the tension that the characters continued to have throughout the film as a result. It really worked for me.
There is also a brief note about how scientists don’t always agree and us normies have to determine on our own, who’s telling the truth or rather, who has got the science right. You can’t just always believe everything you are told. That doesn’t make sense, but then how do honest scientists get heard? It’s a tough place to be. It’s like the news too. How can you tell the difference between fake news and real news?
Each person has to make their own decisions. There are no correct answers until after the fact and it’s too late to be right or wrong.
Tyler Perry and Cate Blanchett play two morning news casters Jack Bremmer and Brie Evantee.
They were so delightfully exaggerated and over the top, hilariously playing into the emphasis on looking perfect and keeping things happy for their audience. At one point Jack asks if the comet can hit his ex-wife’s home as a joke, but there is a sense that he wasn’t joking. It makes you wonder just how twisted these people are constantly presenting toxic fake positivity and misleading their viewers.
Cate stole the movie for me playing the role of Brie Evantee, the superficial lady morning show host that is smitten with the “handsome astronomer” as she calls him, who is married by the way. Her news anchor American accent cracks me up. It was brilliant.
Brie has a happy go lucky image on TV, but in person she is actually unscrupulous, selfish, and an elitist. Her character could have her own movie and I would totally watch the heck out of that. Her grandfather invented the flash freezing process so she grew up ultra rich. She has 3 masters degrees. Twice divorced. One of her husbands was a sport fisherman and the other the secretary of state. She slept with 2 former presidents. She speaks four languages and owns 2 Monets. What a fascinating creature.
She actively pursues Randall and he easily succumbs without any protest at all! It takes two to tango, so both of them are culpable here. There is a part in the film when Randall says that he thought that he was falling in love with her, but actually he was in love with all of the attention she was giving him. And boy there was a lot of great chemistry between them.
Leonardo and Cate played lovers previously in The Aviator (2004), where she won an Oscar for playing Katharine Hepburn. She’s truly mesmerizing in this.
Rob Morgan plays Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, the head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office at NASA. He acts as a support to Kate and Randall to connect them to the government and the media. Rob plays Teddy pretty straight on. When other characters lose their cool, Teddy stays stoic in the midst of chaos. The film really needed him as an anchor and when he’s on screen I felt like I was watching a documentary or a biopic. He’s that good in this.
Meryl Streep plays President Orlean who according to the director, is neither Republican or Democrat. In fact she was like an exaggerated amalgamation of Former President Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton. Meryl however, did want the character to look more like a Republican. However, the filmmakers have no love for either party because both have done very little towards climate change.
President Orlean is a lot like Brie, if she had made a career in politics. They are both focused on looking as hot as possible, driven by sex and sex appeal and seeking ways to keep their constituents happy under a very false sense of security.
President Orlean mentions in the film that you can’t go around saying that there is a 100% chance everyone is going to die because it would cause panic and the President of the United States is supposed to make everyone feel safe. What we should also consider, which is interesting for her character, is that she mentions that there are many earth threatening meetings that she has seen during her tenure such as economic collapse, loose nukes, car exhaust killing the atmosphere, and rogue AI. We can see how she is completely jaded at yet another dire situation. It’s no big whoop for her to shrug this off. They’ve survived the other near misses right?
Initially she ignores the comet. When her approval rating is in jeopardy because of a scandal, she finally concedes to do the right thing only as a distraction. Her motives are completely self motivated and she still doesn’t believe there is any danger.
Just as she is about to save the earth, she succumbs to greed presented by one of her campaign mega donors, the tech mogul, Peter Isherwell played brilliantly by Mark Rylance.
He convinces the president to abort the mission mid-mission in order to mine the comet for minerals. It doesn’t go well. It leads to the destruction of the planet.
Peter Isherwell is an exaggerated amalgamation of Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, and Jeff Bezos with a hint of Joe Biden. It’s an interesting group, but he doesn't emulate them. Peter is his own special complex character.
He pays top dollar for the best teams and he trusts all of his analysts completely so he is unable to deal with anyone questioning him. He got extremely upset when Randall called him a businessman. He is after something noble, like being the savior of mankind to advance civilization to the next level of evolution.
So ultimately, in this film, politics is corrupted by greed and mega rich billionaires are ruled by leaving their mark for posterity which leaves the average person better for their success or a victim of their failures.
Is that real life or just a conspiracy theory?
At one point in the story the comet becomes visible and there is a campaign for people to “just look up” and see that the comet is real. Then Orlean puts together rallies to tell people to “don’t look up”, thus giving us the title of the film.
“Don’t look up” has been interpreted as a way to claim that the movie thinks that some people are so dumb that they will do as they are told. On the other hand it can also be interpreted that people didn’t want to look up because they didn’t want to be afraid. This is all a matter of opinion.
Some people have even compared this to “mask up” or “don’t mask up” or “get vaccinated” or “don’t get vaccinated”. Each side has their own point of view on the matter that makes perfect sense to them based on the life they’ve experienced.
Jonah Hill plays Jason Orlean who is President Orlean’s son who she has given the position of Chief of Staff who carries nuclear codes in a Birkin bag. Jonah, who’s lines were mostly improvised, said that he modeled the character around the question, "What if Fyre Festival was a person?"
Jason is a cringy and an exaggerated example of a horrible human being that has no business in public office. Sadly I have met some people just like Jason. Oh yes, he’s real. Most reviewers and critics hate him and he is supposed to be hated. Job well done.
I laughed a lot when he was on screen, not at his jokes, but at him. He’s ridiculous and I enjoyed the spectacle of his absurdity. Truthfully, I have found with a lot of people like this, being rude and absurd is a cry for attention that is a bottomless pit. Jonah Hill played that part so well.
Timothée Chalamet plays a skater kid by the name of Yule who becomes a love interest of Kate just in time for the end of the world. He’s not in the film for very long but he does well with his moment delivering last words to soothe everyone in a scene that could be described as “the last supper”.
There was a lot of pushback because some criticisms about the film are that the filmmakers are part of the privileged rich elite and they have no right to talk down to us about what we should be doing. The film is absolutely self aware of this because President Orlean mentions this in her speech against the “Look Up” campaign.
Other stars in the film are Ron Perlman, Himesh Patel, Chris Evans and Michael Chiklis to name a few. These celebrities are also humans. They are allowed to feel a certain way about something and speak out about it. They also have the ability to put their money where their mouth is, whereas most people are trying to keep food on the table.
The film does well to insert some celebrities in the film and satires them too. Ariana Grande plays Riley Bina, a vapid popstar that the public is more interested in than news of the comet. Even our straight laced character, Teddy, is a fan and follows her closely. It’s a little reprieve from impending doom or the harsh realities of everyday life. She makes several social media posts to stay relevant, talking about the comet.
In order to get the attention of the other leaders of the world to perform their own comet deflecting missions, Randall and Kate get Riley Bina and her fiancé DJ Chello played by Kid Cudi to perform in a “Look Up” concert event. This is much the same as the star studded cast appearing in this movie for the cause. Celebrities have a way of capturing an audience that might possibly listen to their message. It’s very meta.
Adding more shenanigans to the situation, the song they perform in my opinion is completely bananas. Arianna improvised a lot of the lyrics for the song. I just roll in stitches every time I hear it. It’s so silly and the crazy dress she’s wearing, the whole over-the-top presentation, is so cringy and wrong that this is happening while a comet is headed towards earth to destroy it. Maybe I have a weird sense of humor, but it’s so funny to me. The idea of holding a concert as a comet threatens all life on earth is unfathomable and it is there to make the audience feel like screaming at the characters on screen a lot like Kate and Randall had done earlier in the film.
Kate has a running joke going in the film. The general that takes them to see the president brings them snacks and charges them for it. However, later on in the film, Kate discovers that the snacks were free. So as with anyone this would happen to, even though she is dealing with the end of the world, her mind is perplexed as to why a decorated general would scam them out of $40. I just loved that.
The main character arc in the film is given to Randall. Isherwell tells Randall that his algorithm has a prediction of 96.7% accuracy; he will die alone. The Algorithm was wrong and I do believe that Randall changed his fate by finally refuting fame and the passive role as “America’s Sexiest Astronomer”. After being so frustrated and lost, he cracks up under pressure, knowing that the world is going to end. His explosion of emotion was so beautiful, chaotic and satisfying. I loved it.
The culmination of all of this story leads up to the “last supper” where Randall reconnects with his wife June Mindy, played by Melanie Lynskey in Michigan. They are joined by Kate, Yule, Teddy, and Randall’s two adult sons. It’s a beautiful moment in the film and really pulls everything together where he realizes that through his adventures, being among his friends and family doing something so mundane as eating dinner is what life is all about. He says so poignantly, “We really did have it all.”
To be honest, this really hit home for me because I have pretty much been isolated between home and work for two years during this pandemic. I would love nothing more than to even see my friends and family just once. Sometimes in the search for fame, money, and adventure, when it all comes down to it, the connection to people that means the most, is what is most comforting… the most meaningful.
The final cherry on top was the music. I loved the music! It blasts a lot of big jazzy horns that are dramatically upbeat and fun. Think Las Vegas in the 1940’s. It's very ironic for a dark comedy that ends with the world's destruction. Loved it!
My final thoughts. I adore this film. I’ve watched it several times already to make sure, and although it’s not perfect by a long mile, I mean there are so many plot holes and vortexes, but I enjoyed this so much. I guess I could classify it as a guilty pleasure. I do feel a little guilty for liking it. It’s the first time I have seen a disaster movie that left me in a good mood afterwards. And hey, it gave me a lot of amazing laughs during a rough time.
My Rating:
8.5
That sums up my review. I hope you liked it.
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