Don't Look Up

Movie: Don't Look Up

Nominated for: Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing

How I watched: Netflix

When I fell asleep: Nope

When it had me: Right when they made the calculation

When it lost me: It didn't

What I have to say:

This movie was really triggering for some people. I found it quite funny and only mildly disturbing. I think the story of a meteor heading toward earth was meant to be an allegory for climate change. It served just as well as a commentary on the pandemic. I found it cathartic to laugh at how unforgivably stupid we all are (although certainly some much more so than others.)

Some characters serve as archetypes while others feel like more direct stand-ins for actual figures. The gleeful insanity of humanity is painted in such a way that I sort of love us as much as I hate us when watching it. We are SO TERRIBLY flawed, how can we hope to do better? Maybe we REALLY are doing our best. And a recurring joke about a general who charges people for snacks made me so incredibly happy to see my kind of ruminating brought to life on the screen.

The tone of the movie seemed like a tricky one to pull off. It dares us to laugh at ourselves and never quite feels as angry or resentful as I would expect it to. After all, it's a movie that says we are valuing wealth and fame over intelligence and seriousness and it will literally mean the end of all but the very richest of us. I don't think anything about that premise is an exaggeration, or even wrong. It tells us the best we can hope for is to die in good company. It seems depressing and fatalistic but is it wrong? 

The strongest move in this film, for me, was to include seemingly random cutaways to nature, animals, vistas and people from around the world, often poor people, just living their lives. In the midst of this wacky send-up we are being reminded without overt comment of everything we have to lose. That coupled with a line by Leonardo DiCaprio in the final scene, "We really did have it all, didn't we?" make this movie transcend from straight satire to a bittersweet love letter to a planet that is hurting from the ugly parasitic species that is doing the harm. I continue to be a fan of Adam McKay's pull-no-punches film making.