Don't Look Up (2021)

 In 2006 a film came out called 'American Dreamz', a broad satire about a George W. Bush like president whose falling approval numbers prompts him to agree to guest host an 'American Idol' type reality show, and the contestant/ terrorist sleeper agent assigned to kill him when he does. While far from a great film that movie captured something so true about the state of our nation at that time, the inane celebrity culture, silly reality television, uninspiring political leadership, and counter productive foreign policy, that it made me feel a little nauseous. 'Don't Look Up' on the other hand, made me want to throw up. 

Adam McKay's new movie dark comedy is about the nations reaction to an approaching comet, whose certain impact would spell the destruction of the human race. While technologically the challenge of destroying the comet before impact seems within our grasp, as a society we may have become too divided and dysfunctional to summon the collective will to do so. 

Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio play the scientists who respectively discover and chart the course of the comet, while Rob Morgan is the government scientist who first takes them seriously. The trio fly to Washington to the meet the nations Palin/Trump like president Meryl Streep and her toddy son / chief of staff Jonah Hill, who basically tell them that for political reasons it's not a good time for a life threating comet, so we'll have scientists we trust more double check your math and get back to you. 

With only 6 1/2 months to go before the impact there is no time to wait, so Lawrence and DiCaprio agree to go on a popular morning show to sound the alarm, where they are overshadowed by the breaking relationship drama of an Ariana Grande type singer played by Ariana Grande. 

The mechanisms of public and government response are slow to get going, but get going they do until the stopping of the impending destruction of the human race comes to be perceived as a partisan political issue, and then things break down again. One asks ones self if a society this short sighted is worth saving. 

The intended metaphor here is for climate change, but it also works for Covid and other things. The celebrity culture and reality television world of 'American Dreamz' 2006 is supplemented 15 years later with the world of social media, and a hyper partisanship that has fractured that celebrity cultural along lines of political identity. On 'the left' the celebs are of little substance, on 'the right' they are the same, but also hold high office and the fate of humanity in their hands.

While taking mild shots at the left this film is not bi-partisan, it's primary focus is on the right, and some times it gets mean, but it's not without a point, the reality denial on the right far, far outpaces in magnitude that on the left. This of course is a point that when you make it, you retrench that denial on the other side, so while the seeming message of the film is we all need to take reality more seriously, it doesn't help that cause, so as consolation gives the left  permission to laugh about how screwed we are. 

The old saying that comedy is tragedy plus time has it's inverse, tragedy is comedy when the time runs out. ***1/2