Don’t Look Up is a 2021 American apocalyptic black comedy film written, produced, and directed by Adam McKay, and starring an ensemble cast including Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Scott Mescudi, Cate Blanchett, and Meryl Streep.
It tells the story of two astronomers attempting to warn humanity about an approaching comet that will destroy human civilization. The impact event is an allegory for climate change, and the film is a satire of government, political, celebrity, and media indifference to the climate crisis.
Produced by Hyperobject Industries and Bluegrass Films, the film was announced in November 2019 and sold by Paramount Pictures to Netflix several months later. Lawrence became the first member of the cast to join, with Di Caprio signing on after his discussions with McKay on adjustments to the script; the rest of the cast was added through 2020. Filming was initially set to begin in April 2020 in Massachusetts, but was delayed due to the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic; it eventually began in November 2020 and wrapped in February 2021.
‘Don’t Look Up’ began a limited theatrical release on December 10, 2021, before streaming on Netflix on December 24. It received mixed reviews from critics, who praised the cast but were divided on the merits of McKay’s satire; some found it deft, while others criticized it as smug and heavy-handed. The film received more positive feedback from scientists. ‘Don’t Look Up’ was named one of the top ten films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute.
It received four Academy Award nominations, including Best Picture, four Golden Globe Award nominations, including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy, and six Critics’ Choice Award nominations, including Best Picture. The film set a new record for the most viewing hours in a single week on Netflix, and went on to become the second most-watched movie on Netflix within 28 days of release.
Critical response
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, 55% of 286 critics’ reviews are positive, with an average rating of 6.30/10. The website’s consensus reads, “’Don’t Look Up’ aims too high for its scattershot barbs to consistently land, but Adam McKay’s star-studded satire hits its target of collective denial square on.” Metacritic, which uses a weighted average, assigned the film a score of 49 out of 100 based on 52 critics, indicating “mixed or average reviews”.
The ‘San Francisco Chronicle’s’ Mick LaSalle praised the film and wrote, “’Don’t Look Up’ might be the funniest movie of 2021. It’s the most depressing too, and that odd combination makes for a one-of-a-kind experience... McKay gives you over two hours of laughs while convincing you that the world is coming to an end.” Richard Roeper of the ‘Chicago Sun-Times’ gave the film 2.5 out of 4 stars and said: “From Streep and DiCaprio and Lawrence through the supporting players, ‘Don’t Look Up’ is filled with greatly talented actors really and truly selling this material — but the volume remains at 11 throughout the story when some changes in tone here and there might have more effectively carried the day.”
Reviewing the film for the ‘Los Angeles Times’, Justin Chang wrote, “Nothing about the foolishness and outrageousness of what the movie shows us — no matter how virtuosically sliced and diced by McKay’s characteristically jittery editor, Hank Corwin — can really compete with the horrors of our real-world American idiocracy.” Amit Katwala of Wired concluded that “’Don’t Look Up’ nails the frustration of being a scientist.” Linda Marric of ‘The Jewish Chronicle’ gave the film 4/5 stars, writing: “There is something genuinely endearing about a film that doesn’t seem to care one bit about coming across as silly as long as its message is heard”.
Shruti Kotiya of ‘Sportskeeda, suggests that “’Don’t Look Up’ also feels similar to Mike Judge’s ‘Idiocracy’, which is set in 2505 America, where mindless entertainment and violence are what really matter. It also sheds light on how the world’s collective IQ has hit its lowest, which is why ‘Don’t Look Up’ is like a 21st-century version of it.”
Negative
In a negative review, David Rooney of ‘The Hollywood Reporter’called the film “A cynical, insufferably smug satire stuffed to the gills with stars that purports to comment on political and media inattention to the climate crisis but really just trivializes it. ‘Dr. Strangelove’ it ain’t.” Peter Debruge of ‘Variety’ called the film a “smug, easy-target political satire” and wrote, “’Don’t Look Up’ plays like the leftie answer to ‘Armageddon’ — which is to say, it ditches the Bruckheimer approach of assembling a bunch of blue-collar heroes to rocket out to space and nuke the approaching comet, opting instead to spotlight the apathy, incompetence and financial self-interest of all involved.”
In ‘The Guardian’, Charles Bramesco wrote that the “script states the obvious as if everyone else is too stupid to realize it and does so from a position of lofty superiority that would drive away any partisans who still need to be won over.” Reviews from right-wing publications were nearly unanimously negative, as the film is deeply critical of right-wing politics.
Madeline Fry Schultz of the American conservative publication ‘Washington Examiner’ wrote that “McKay manages to deliver nothing more than a derivative and meandering “satire” of capitalism, Donald Trump, and climate deniers that will be forgotten in less than six months.” Kyle Smith of American conservative publication ‘National Review’ wrote that the film “expends 140 brain-injuriously unfunny minutes... propelling low-velocity spitballs at social media, Washington, tech moguls, Trumpism, and (this detail feels thrown in last minute) anti-vaxxers.”
Nathan J. Robinson, editor of ‘Current Affairs’, believes that “critics were not only missing the point of the film in important ways, but that the very way they discussed the film exemplified the problem that the film was trying to draw attention to. Some of the responses to the movie could have appeared in the movie itself.”
In ‘The Guardian’, Catherine Bennett viewed the film as astute and was caustic about the critical reviews. Writing for the American socialist publication ‘Jacobin’, Branko Marcetic says that the plot of the film, while absurd, hardly exaggerates, noting that “much of our political elite are just as greedy and foolish, our media just as vapid, and our response to impending disaster exactly as mind-bogglingly irrational as in the movie.”
British journalist and environmental activist George Monbiot wrote in ‘The Guardian’ that “no wonder journalists have slated it … it’s about them” and added that for environmental activists like himself, the film, while fast‑paced and humorous, “seemed all too real”.
Bong Joon-ho, director of ‘Snowpiercer’ and ‘Parasite’, included ‘Don’t Look Up’ as one of his favorite films of 2021.
Reception among scientists
Since the film’s release, numerous climate scientists and climate communicators have offered positive opinions on the film.
In an opinion piece published in ‘The Guardian’, climate scientist Peter Kalmus remarked, “ ’on’t Look Up’ is satire. But speaking as a climate scientist doing everything I can to wake people up and avoid planetary destruction, it’s also the most accurate film about society’s terrifying non-response to climate breakdown I’ve seen.” Climate scientist Michael E. Mann also expressed support for the film, calling it “serious sociopolitical commentary posing as comedy”.
In an article for ‘Scientific American’, Rebecca Oppenheimer questioned the film’s use of a comet impact as an effective metaphor for climate change, given the large differences in timescale of these differing potential extinction crisis events and the nature of their impacts, but praised its depiction of science denialism and depiction of a botched attempt to address a “planet-killer” comet. Climate policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson and McKay wrote a joint op-ed in ‘The Guardian’ advocating for the value of humour in promoting action on climate change, in contrast with other media coverage.
Writing in ‘Physics World’, Laura Hiscott said that this “genuinely funny and entertaining film” would appeal to scientists, who would appreciate the “nods to academia such as the importance of peer review, the ‘publish or perish’ problem and the issue of senior academics getting the credit for their PhD students’ discoveries”.
One of the scenes in the film was compared on social media to a situation in Brazil. In that situation, microbiologist and science communicator Natália Pasternak Taschner criticized a news report made by TV Cultura on a live broadcast in December 2020.
They told the Brazilian population to face the Covid-19 pandemic with “lightness”, minimizing the risks. They also put pressure on the public to be content and uncritical of the Jair Bolsonaro administration’s lack of effective response to the pandemic. Hearing about the comparisons, Pasternak thanked McKay, Di Caprio and Lawrence on Twitter with the video subtitled in English to thank them for the “incredible” film.