Why Adam Mckay’s New Film Don’t Look Up Fails to Hit Home
Acclaimed director, Adam Mckay, has created a world in his new film Don’t Look Up that reflects much of our own in the past two years where we have lived in constant shock at the absurd level of chaos that continues to arise. There are two main characters: Kate Dibiasky, played by Jennifer Lawrence, who is an angsty, mullet-bearing, Ph.D. student who discovers a nine-kilometer wide comet headed to destroy life on Earth. The other is Dr. Randall Mindy, played by Leonardo Dicaprio, who is Kate’s anxiety-ridden astronomy professor. For the duration of the two-and-a-half-hour film, Kate and Randall attempt to warn the public of the Earth’s apocalyptic end and initiate a plan to intercept the comet before it becomes too late.
The movie comments on the world’s use of broadcast news, social media, and celebrity culture to remain in denial of Earth’s imminent destruction, which parallels seamlessly to real life. Randall and Kate’s efforts to inform the public induce increasingly more outrageous scenarios. Their news concerning the impending extinction of the human race is thoroughly dismissed in a meeting with the United States’ President Orlean (Meryl Streep), a sort of fictional incarnation of former President Trump. Randall and Kate then appear on a popular talk show, The Daily Rip, whose hosts, Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry), make light of Randall and Kate’s multiple attempts to announce the danger of the comet. When Kate says the comet will likely hit Earth, Jack facetiously asks whether the comet would demolish his ex-wife’s home.
Frustration brims as hardly anyone had reacted to the scientific data humorlessly and Kate loses her temper, screaming hysterically on national television. But instead of a wake-up call to the public, her distress becomes a viral meme, causing Kate and Randall to become an internet sensation for all the wrong reasons. The scene encapsulates Mckay’s main argument about societal behavior, suggesting that in our current climate situation, many people choose to turn away from plausible scientific facts to hear more about their favorite celebrities’ breakup.
It is only when President Orlean starts losing the midterm election due to a series of her nude photos leaked to the public, that a proposition is made to launch a mission to attempt to blow up the comet before it hits Earth. The world’s exclamation and relief on the launch day are almost immediately rerouted as the ship turns back to Earth following the appearance of an Elon Musk-type character, Peter Isherwell, CEO of BASH Cellular. He informs President Orlean that the comet is made up of a precious mineral that, when broken into smaller pieces before landing on Earth, could be used to manufacture cell phone devices and accumulate a profit of thirty-two trillion dollars. His character reveals the corruption of the government’s decision-making, capitalist greed, and excessive power of large tech corporations that BASH represents. While Don’t Look Up at times expresses compelling social commentary, more often the execution of its storyline falls flat.
Even as a person who enjoys satire, the message of Don’t Look Up is, as many viewers have noticed, extremely redundant in how much of the dialogue is made up of obvious statements about what happens at every moment. While it could be that the less than subtle dialogue was a decision made to allow for a clearer, universal understanding of the film, instead it felt more like Adam Mckay made a list of scenes he wanted to fulfill and left the rest of the plotline uncared for.
The second act is all over the place between BASH CEO Peter Isherwell extinguishing the government’s original plan to intercept the comet and the subplot of Randall’s call to fame. He faces the media’s sexualization of his tv appearances and participates in a less humorous affair with the talk-show host, Brie Evantee. Randall is also the only character who seems to have some development from a person who “runs towards pleasure and away from pain” and “dies alone” to a remorseful, loyal husband. But even this one glint of character arc does little to advance the comet interception storyline and adds over five unnecessary scenes to an already lengthy run-time.
The cast features minor supporting roles from Ariana Grande, Timothee Chalamet, Kid Cudi, and even Chris Evans. The design of Mckay’s casting and the accessibility of Netflix as a streaming service allowed for the record-breaking 152 million hours of viewing of Don’t Look Up after its first week of release. The star-studded cast does work to draw viewers in however, many have gotten the impression that it is hypocritical for Hollywood to preach to them about the urgency of a climate issue which they don’t seem to care about themselves. The majority of the movie’s seventy-five million dollar budget most likely landed in the hands of the extravagant cast rather than climate-action organizations.
Adam Mckay’s incessant tweeting since the movie premiered on Netflix has done even less to earn back his viewers’ consideration. Mckay’s retweets of praise for Don’t Look Up include the affirmation from scientists who relate to the frustration that the movie expresses about the general indifference toward climate change. However, the story should not be successful just for acknowledging real-life frustration because it is deserving of critique for other parts of the movie’s structure. Most of the controversy regarding Adam Mckay’s credibility springs from his response to the initial criticism of the film implying that anyone who doesn’t like Don’t Look Up does not have “at least a small ember of anxiety about the climate collapsing,” which, of course, is extremely untrue.
Don’t Look Up is not so much a film about climate change but our behavior in response to it. Adam Mckay attempts to convey a message to an audience that is intended to be universal but does it in a way that is accepted by an inherently limited audience. Ironically, the controversy toward the film reflects the idea that is trying to be conveyed: that people won’t listen to what they don’t want to hear, no matter how true it may be. But, unfortunately, Don’t Look Up makes no real difference in changing that fact.