Movie Review: Don’t Look Up Is Netflix’s Best Horror Movie
Watching Don’t Look Up, I laughed and cried more than in any other film of this year because it was so unique and pertinent to humanity’s current Climate Crisis. The earth is, literally, kicking us out, and we have fooled ourselves into believing that the Earth is dying when, in truth, we are. So why is no one panicking? Why am I more worried about my social media stats than whether WE WILL HAVE ENOUGH OXYGEN AND LAND TO LIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I have always said that comedy is the choice to laugh at your tragedy, but a great comedy understands when you need to cry. For all the HILARIOUS, INSANE jokes and situations that interfere with Randall (Leonardo Dicaprio), Kate (Jennifer Lawrence), and Teddy’;s (Rob Morgan) eagerness to tell the world their government is about to let them die at the hands of a “planet-killer” comet and Jeff Bezos porto-type, Mark Rylance as Peter Isherwell , in hopes, they can makes some money… well….. it felt too real. If this pandemic has shown us, anything, is that our leaders, no matter what party or ideology they claim, all kneel to money. With tens of Congress members, many whom opposed the vaccines, found to be investing in it, as Meryl Streep explained in a press conference, those in power truly just define it in how it expands and extends their life. The comment hit me hard because if her character President Orlean and her son, Jason (Jonah Hill as the human embodiment of Fyre Fest), are emulations of our leaders…. we are screwed.
Written by Adam McKay, prior to pandemic now entering its 4th surge, Don’t Look Up thrives as a film that questions human apathy as a response to our internalized greed. We live in a world of wanting “more” and “easy,” two words not at all associated with Climate Change. There is no way to make the earth becoming inhabitable for every current living creature, which means you, into a something palatable; it is the equivalent to watching those St.Jude or ASPCA commercials, on loop, 24/7/. If you, actually, knew how bad things are and will get, you’d cry so hard that what you believed was your current depression would pale in comparison. Watching this film, I felt like my spirit cried, instead of my usual ego: the thing that feels the universe is against it if it sees the next train is 20 minutes away. I was humbled to the point that the super funny and vain characters such as news anchors, Cate Blanchett’s Evie and Tyler Perry’s Jack lose their charm by the end because social media can only make petty and numb feel thought-provoking and cute for so long. Hence, Climate Change rarely trends….. it is an actual bitch.
Don’t Look Up calls society out, or rather its citizens, in how we avoid real issues because we can’t get over our personal ones enough to solve bigger ones. Whether rich or poor, we are stuck in a hamster wheel of desires and fears that never become real but oddly keep us satisfied and salivating over the thought of them because they help us distract from self-accountability and our own role in not bettering ourselves. Perhaps, that is why we treat the earth like she is a house, not a home, because most of us live or are living our life as if it is something we will own one day.Yet, the earth in not a rent-controlled apartment, and seeing how this films brutally and HILARIOUSLY displays people’s difficulty at understanding that makes it, low-key, one of the best horror movies of the year. Honestly, people! Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk are NOT GOING TO TAKE YOU TO SPACE WITH THEM! THEY WILL SAVE THEMSELVES! We are staying here, and its characters like, Yule (Timothee Chalamet) and Lawrence’s Katie. that prove good people will always fight for what is right, even if they can feel as wrong as everyone else. The former is so sweet, charming, and oddly gracious, even when flawed, that as he joins our rat-pack of astronomers, you cheer and you cry because good people deserve to win…. and yet they don’t.
Good people are not perfect. They are flawed, but what makes them good is not simply that their strengths outweigh their weakness, but that they want more strength. In essence, they want to be better. Yet, this world treats the ultra-rich and famous like they are perfect, and the movie shows how that, in an Apocalypse scenario, gives them protection. You may not think there is an exchange, but it our very spiritual relationship to watching tho.se who have better, material lives that has cut us from realizing we are about to lose our life. Don’t Look Up Comes out on Netflix December 24.
