Spoilers for the movie Don't Look Up.

Hello, everyone. Here are some quick thoughts about the movie Don't Look Up. Compared to my usual wordy texts, these are quickly written and edited notes, so please bear with the lesser quality. This is all subjective, as always. Enjoy reading and please share your thoughts afterward. Cheers.

I watched Don't Look Up the other day. I'm only giving quick thoughts about it, but the movie does deserve some recognition and did not leave me unmoved.

I'm not sure of how I feel about the movie. There were several times where I almost stopped watching because the movie was so depressing and infuriating in how it portrays a pretty plausible turn of events, with modern human society facing an incoming major disaster and being completely unable to deal with it in a good manner. In the end, I liked the movie but found it really difficult to watch. It is probably going into the box for significant movies that I will never watch again.

Don't Look Up is a movie where two astronomers discover a large comet is about to crash into Earth and have to go around raising awareness and prompting governments into action. The events ensue in an exaggerated, parodic way, although it feels too real for comfort, where politicians care about polls and businessmen care about money, where people live through social media and celebrities, where facts are distorted and met with conspiracy theories, where opinions put people in conflict with each other, where public image is the most important thing.

Quickly summarizing the movie here, jump to the next paragraph to avoid explicit spoilers: A comet is headed toward Earth and will destroy all life. The science is solid, peer-reviewed. Politicians are hard to convince, and say it is just another obscure threat. Information leaks and media makes it a big story. Politicians are now okay with doing something. A deflection plan is drafted quickly, and executed with all experts working around the clock and the nation being united for one purpose. There is a good chance the mission is going to work, even with stupid stunts pulled left and right. Then evil corporation decides itself more powerful than the government and more important than the people, and aborts the mission, to instead use the comet for its riches. The nation is divided, plagued with radicalization and conspiracies. The new plan fails horribly. Earth is done for.

The movie is quite heavy handed in how it pictures everything, with absurd situations and caricatured characters, and comes off several times as irritating and exasperating. Every single character, except maybe Kate, is very unlikable, and the whole thing feels ridiculous. However, the movie is making a point and being blunt about it. And as ridiculous as the events are, you would not even be that surprised if the exact same stuff happened in real life. While not having fully enjoyed the movie, I can only nod to the message it conveys, or more objectively to the situation it shows. Faced with a cataclysmic threat, imminent and distant, humankind will both rise to the challenge and close its eyes and fight itself. It is very easy to draw parallels to the climate crisis, or more recently to the pandemic.

Beyond the general tone of the movie, I would raise criticism about centering on the USA, which is not surprising and which may be on purpose anyway, whether to find its audience as an American movie, or to go further into the parody and the realism with the USA acting as the center of the world. There is also a measure of a religious message, with faith and Christian prayers taking a noticeable role toward the end. It was not exactly preaching nor was it overwhelming, as it was mostly a few characters showing off their faith in their last hours, and intimate family moments during the end of the world, where religion happened to lend its words. Personally, I quite despise religion in general, but I have no issue with people holding on to beliefs and to faith. I do think the religious tone at the end, associated with the American viewpoint, was a little out of place and jarring, especially when almost everyone and everything was being painted in a bad light during the movie.

Let's make a quick tour of what we see criticized: scientists, being bad at making themselves understandable; politicians, more preoccupied by their reelection than by the end of the world; celebrities, faking drama to get attention; corporations, abusing customers and pretending to be all loving; media, judging stories based on audience score rather than merit; protesters, vandalizing indiscriminately; the police and the army, mishandling citizens and being old assholes; modern people in general, being mean and selfish, believing in conspiracies, relying on others and on social media to live. There is probably more.

Overall, the movie is unlikable, yes. I found solace in the sometimes funny situations and dialogues, and with Kate being just fed up with everything. It felt like a Black Mirror movie: look how horrible humankind is! The worse part is that once you are done with the movie, you just go back to whatever you were doing with your life, because what else is there to do? I am a lazy bitch with a privileged situation in a rich country. I try to be a good human being, but what am I even doing? Did I do something to reverse climate change? Barely anything. Did I make people happy around me? No, or only just a little. Did I help people in need? No. Did I fight poverty? No. Did I stop the wars? No. Did I achieve anything noteworthy? No. I am one human among billions, preoccupied with myself and my loved ones, probably with the power to do something, without any motivation to move my ass. I have endless respect for those who try and who act, the numerous souls that make our planet a better place bit by bit and in their own ways, whether they are a delivery man or a billionaire philanthropist.

So here. Don't Look Up make you feel like shit, that's for sure. Watch it if you want, it's a decent enough movie. I would recommend the Big Short and Margin Call before it though, as they are more grounded and enjoyable, if just as much depressing and pessimistic.

Thanks for reading. Cheers.