Review- Don’t Look Up Is A Deeply Moving Film That Gives A Voice To Our Collective Fears, Anxieties, And Our Unwillingness To Do Anything About Them

So maybe you’ve heard this one, a Ph.D. student and a professor of astronomy walk into a room with evidence that nearly all living things on Earth will die a very violent death very soon and get this, no one takes them seriously no matter how many times the evidence is reverified to be accurate. Hilarious, right? Photo courtesy of NBCNews. com.

Starring a whole lot of people you love, and a few you love to hate, Don’t Look Up has critics and fans profoundly divided in their opinions of Adam McKay’s piece, and it doesn’t look like things will change any time soon and as a reviewer, I gotta admit, I’m kinda happy about it.

Photo courtesy of NBCNews. com

While randomly searching the viewable universe from Michigan State University’s astronomy lab a Ph.D. student named Kate Dibiasky discovers an interloping comet possibly heading for Earth. Her professor Dr. Randall Mindy does the math and comes to the undeniable conclusion that in fact the comet is heading straight for Earth, it’s a planet killer, and the date of impact is within 6 months of the discovery. The rest of the film is basically about Kate and Dr. Randall trying to get the threat taken seriously while their lives fall apart because they’re demonized for sounding the alarm. It’s a page out right out of How To Kick The Can Down The Road And Blame Someone Else playbook, just insert whatever looming global catastrophe has your attention at the moment. There are, unfortunately, plenty to choose from.

Photo courtesy of Forbes. com

The film does an excellent job of conveying the frustrations of the worldwide scientific community (and its supporters) regarding society’s inability to take global threats seriously, the mainstream media’s lack of serious coverage of looming catastrophes, and the deepening divide between those who trust data and those who don’t, a divide being made worse by poorly supervised social media and those who profit from its abuse. The writing is fantastically simple but conveyed profoundly, the visuals are engrossing and occasionally swing between normal storyline scenes and odd cutaways that poignantly drive the moment home, the science is solid, and the music score fits the flow of the movie like a glove. It really is a brilliant movie that just asks us to take evidence seriously.

For more information about Don’t Look Up you can visit the official IMDb here, the official teaser trailer can be seen here, and the movie can be streamed here.