Review: "Don't Look Up" Makes Us Look Somewhere Even More Important

Adam McKay finds his footing by stomping on American stupidity.

May 1, 2022

The world is not as fascinating as it once was. Technological advancement is so commonplace we have become desensitized to it. It feels as though we move laterally or leap back, always putting Band-Aids over bullet wounds, then feigning shock when the blood bursts through to the surface. We snipe at each other with the intellect equatable to a towering midget, denouncing anyone who can speak on their own behalf as purveyors of pretentious “word salad” instead of pushing each other, and ourselves, to meet a higher standard. As we find more intensive ways to engage with one another, spreading our idiocy from one end of the spectrum to the other, we empower ourselves based on the falsehood that our words are worth hearing. We encourage everyone to employ free speech, constantly engaging in mutual validation we cannot self-imbue because deep down, we know it is false. We are not special.

We have not devolved to our current state; we were always this way, just incapable of seeing how deep our lunacy ran. Now, we house video evidence of our stupidity, from election conspiracy theorists grasping for the words to relay their imagined slights to national convention attendees marching on political gatherings armed with the most baseline notions of the opposing party.

Our habitat seems destined for destruction, and humanity itself is all too willing to ignore it. We slip on platitude gloves and spar over problems instead of solutions. In this light, we can say something we never could before: that a film about a comet heading for Earth, the inevitable demise of a species to whom demise is a financial opportunity and a socio-political issue, is topical.

It could seem a stretch to believe we would behave this way: that corporations would seek to profit from our impending doom, and that instead of chastising them for sacrificing the common folk to line wealthy pockets, we would wage a war of attrition to convince people who will never side with us that somehow, some way, that demise could prove fruitful.

Sadly, we have no evidence to prove this assertion. We have no point at which we can show our idiocy stops and gives way to reason, where any form of survival is preferable to dividing ourselves and sacrificing what we hold dear to soothe our egos. Did the insurrectionists who tried to overthrow the American government by storming the Capitol care for that reason, for our collective survival? Have we set aside archaic “principles” to resolve the centuries-old conflicts that plague global society? Have the people who inundate the Internet with posts pleading for aid to nations they only heard about that morning actually done anything to solve the issues about which they claim to care?

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No, and Don’t Look Up is happy to remind us of that.

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Films often debase themselves with self-indulgence, stretching to subvert expectations or lean into subtext. It is the reality of film because it is the reality of us, always pretending we have more value than we do, begging everyone to cater to our pretentiousness. Deep beneath the surface is a film imparting profound truths of the human condition and the implications of our existence. If somehow it gets missed, it is the fault of the viewer. The creator behind the lens, and the frauds filing out of the theater feigning enlightenment they do not have, bite their thumbs at you.

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Movies are like people. When we mask our true intentions, cloaking our thoughts and feelings, beliefs and ideologies, we become so focused on maintaining that veneer that we sacrifice the ability to form authentic relationships. A film’s only connection is to its audience; it lives and dies by the level of commitment in that relationship. If a movie tries to subvert expectations or keep its message from the light, convinced it can somehow challenge us to come to it and not the other way around, it will fail. We can get tricked into acknowledging our shortcomings by getting forced to play out the very scenarios in which we believe we'd thrive. When that happens, we rejoice in embracing that shortcoming; realizations are not threatening if shared by the collective. Ideology is different. Despite claims to the contrary, we will never believe something we do not want to be true.‍

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Don’t Look Up knows that, and it should know that as bluntly as it does. All the events and cultural shifts it satirizes have taught us we do not do well when left to our own devices. Critical rejection of the film is not surprising because most critics are pompous. They will not embrace a critique of humanity that does not elevate them above the rest of us, which is the very nature of appreciating that subtle approach many wish the film would have taken.

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Sentiment should get subdued; messages should not. If a person has something to say, they should say it. There is a social strategy in dancing around an issue and exploiting abstraction to undercut general stupidity, but doing that is a betrayal of all the movie stands for: with the world on the line, with humanity at stake, nuance is not the answer. A comet is heading for Earth. We have six months to live. A heavy hand is needed. It is the very idea of the film: we crave honesty that we do not accept and demand validation for our platitudes. We need to satiate our newfound lust for nuance, for some chink in the armor that allows us to discredit unpleasant notions entirely. If Don’t Look Up wants us to accept this, it must know directness is futile.
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We all write off films like this for being unrealistic, for inaccurately depicting the folly of humanity when the world is in jeopardy. We always believe we would rouse ourselves to great heights and soar above the conceived possibilities to liberate the world. We always loathe the character facing mortal danger who simpers in the corner, wailing the closer death approaches and constantly needing saving, but that character is us. They are a mirror, and we do not like what we see. ‍

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Don’t Look Up succeeds because it is realistic and unashamed to rub our faces in it. It enjoys needling us, picking apart our delusions, and bashing every depressing corner of humanity over the head with a scathing, comedic brick. We are all to blame. We are all equally responsible: the liberals who exploit tragedy for profit, trivializing conflicts with hashtags, and the conservatives condemning society for its progressiveness and taking every governmental mandate as a personal slight, some violation of white privilege that has long allowed them to block out the world.

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Our collective hunger for empty positivity is real and damaging. Morning talk show hosts bellow nonsense that caters to the lowest common denominator or insists on finding the bright side. They feed into the vocal minority that intentionally contorts the meaning of positivity to avoid responsibility for their actions or the pitfalls of dealing with the real world. It is not a figment of corruptive liberalism or oppressive conservatism. It is the very foundation on which we have built our collective ignorance: a “look the other way" philosophy that casts our gaze asunder while we hold out our arms to receive what we get told we need. It is a political film that condemns the social elevator politics rides to conquer the people but does not take sides because it understands there are no sides. The stakes we have raised are the fault of everyone and can thus only get resolved by everyone.

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Don’t Look Up does not always aligns with its ambitions. It zig-zags through its characters, establishing people as reflections before shattering the mirror entirely. Its female protagonist is a no-nonsense brick wall one second and a wailing banshee the next. Its male protagonist is a man of honor who gives into extramarital temptations without a thought, an immoral dalliance that barely gets acknowledged for what it is until the film requires a personal conflict to surge him towards a disingenuous conclusion whose neatness is unearned. It could argue it’s subverting, shattering the illusion that we could be these two people, honorably imploring the people to see reason before abandoning it entirely. Unfortunately, it is too thin narratively to convince us of this.

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But in tackling the end-time in a period that feels like our moral apocalypse, and perhaps, sooner than we think, our actual one, Don’t Look Up manages the rare feat of telling us to go fuck ourselves by making us laugh. It is a riot, mastering comedy in a way many films try to but fail. It is matter-of-fact in the most jarring moments. It forgoes its realism for the sake of a song whose bluntness should feel contrived yet seems sincere in the grand scheme of everything before it. It nails the running gag, that of a woman bemused by a rich man’s greed who at every opportunity consults those around her to unveil his intentions in being so unethical.

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It is a shame critics forsake comedy. After all, humor is the birth of insight, and drama its death. We find value in romances, period pieces, biopics, and war epics because they are not challenging. Rarely do they ask questions not yet answered or offer solutions a blind man could see. They will always feel tidy because we have imagined ourselves in their scenarios time and time again and always reign supreme. Upon occasion, they can break this mold, but it is rare. Comedy asks if we can laugh at ourselves. If we can, there is hope. If we cannot, we never had it.‍

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Don’t Look Up believes there is no hope. It is correct, and that’s what makes it great. It does not presume to offer solutions to a problem we have proven unsolvable. It does not take aim at fixing anything for the sake of satisfying those who want more. It is easy to ask what value a film about moronic denial is in the midst of an era built upon it, but that is the point. We cannot solve something we collectively refuse to acknowledge exists. Don’t Look Up accepts that playing at a fix-it undoes itself entirely. It cannot tell us how to be without pretending we haven’t had thousands of years to figure that out for ourselves, that if it were possible, we would have done it by now, and no movie will prove or refute otherwise.

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Yes, every performance is worthy of an Oscar nomination, and it never feels like the 138 minute-movie that it is. Yes, it perfectly satirizes our sexualizing legitimate professionals of universal value because we care more for broad shoulders and big bulges than the merit of the mind. Yes, it understands that the Internet has given us a voice we did not earn, do not deserve, and should rarely use. Yes, it is direct in its approach, having the spine to say something and stand by it instead of dropping hints or veiling intent and pretending it has more to offer than it does. Yes, it knows with great humor that, for all their bickering, both ends of the political spectrum are engaged in a never ending battle to ascend Worthless Mountain. But it is a great movie not because of those things, but because it makes us not look up, but look in.