Don’t Look Up

by Robbo

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Posted on 4 January 2022

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Rating -

Don’t Look Up is a 2021 American comedy satire written, produced, and directed by Adam McKay.

Kate Dibiasky (Lawrence) is a Michigan State University astronomy Ph.D. candidate who discovers a previously unknown comet and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (DiCaprio), calculates that it will impact Earth in about six months and is large enough to cause a planet-wide extinction event, which NASA internally confirms.

Accompanied by NASA’s Planetary Defense Coordination Office head Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, Dibiasky and Mindy present their findings to the White House but are met with apathy from President Janie Orlean (Streep) and her son, Chief of Staff Jason (Hill).

Dibiasky and Mindy then decide to leak the story live on a morning TV talk show, but when the subject is dealt with in a frivolous manner by the presenters, Dibiasky has a melt down live on air prompting widespread online mockery.

The actual news about the comet receives little public attention and social media appears to be more interested in pop star Riley Bina’s (Grande) relationship than with the impending disaster.

When the President is caught on the middle of a sex scandal she diverts attention by confirming the threat of the comet and announces a plan to divert the comet using nuclear weapons. This plan is wrecked when billionaire and top campaign donor Peter Isherwood (Rylance) discovers the comet contains trillions of dollars worth of rare materials and formulates a plan to exploit the comet for commercial gain.

Don’t look up is a cutting satire on the state of modern politics, social media and main stream media. How the majority of the political elite are consumed with self-interest and exploit the vapid media for their own selfish reasons, and with ‘fake news’ growing steadily and mistrust of media in general, how the majority of perfectly reasonable people are apathetic towards such stories.

This film isn’t perfect and I know many critics are divided, some love it, some hate it but I have to say I enjoyed it.

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