The Netflix black comedy, Don’t Look Up, plays out a modern dystopia. It is a story of dishonesty, oppression, misinformation, and deceit in modern day world, but McKay delivers it in a light hearted way.
Astronomer and scientist Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and a doctoral candidate assistant Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover a catastrophic extinction-level comet headed towards Earth. They try to alert the world to the crisis, only to discover that no one seems to care and underplays their news.
Don’t Look Up is an accurate examination of the twisted priorities and absorbed agendas of the people who have the largest control over our lives. Politicians care more polling numbers than saving mankind, the media cares more about discovering slanderous news than alerting people to a public crisis, and talk shows are more concerned with gossip and pop stars. When the President (Meryl Streep) and media officials find a way to use the comet to their own advantage, that is when the scientists finally begin to break through with their urgent message to the world.
This movie is an allegory for the current state of the world with COVID-19 and also climate change. The movie highlights powerful government officials who willfully avoid acting and often mislead the public. Reflections of how science is being denied is exactly what we are seeing in our current world through the COVID-19 lens.
The star-studded cast does a good job of entertaining while touching on these heavy subjects.