Warning: Contains spoilers for “Don’t Look Up”
Just months before the 2022 Oscars, director Adam McKay built a world on fire, and it looks an awful lot like our own. In his star-studded satire, “Don’t Look Up,” McKay taps into our unhinged political culture and raises the stakes.
“Don’t Look Up” garnered four Oscar nominations, including Best Picture, Best Original Score, Best Original Screenplay and Best Film Editing. These nominations follow four 2022 Golden Globe nominations, among other accolades. The Netflix original is clearly a stunner in the world of cinema and for good reason.
The film’s opening scene introduces doctoral student Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) as she raps along to Wu-Tang and discovers a comet while viewing telescope images. However, “Comet Dibiasky,” as it will later be known, is no ordinary celestial object.
Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), Dibiasky’s bumbling, yet endearing professor, calculates the comet’s trajectory. To Mindy and Dibiasky’s horror, the colossal planet-killer is hurtling toward Earth. In a sane world, the film would have ended shortly thereafter, complete with an unproblematic government effort to save the planet. However, in this dumpster fire of a universe — much like ours — it could never be that simple.
Enter a girlboss-ified Meryl Streep, portraying controversial U.S. President Orlean. Portraits of Richard Nixon and Andrew Jackson ironically hang behind her in the Oval Office as she haughtily dismisses Mindy and Dibiasky’s concerns. At Orlean’s beck and call, Jonah Hill channels his inner Donald Trump Jr. for his role as Jason Orlean, the president’s son and chief of staff.
The pair of scientists — and seasoned planetary defense coordinator Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) — are left at the mercy of the political tide. When a White House sex scandal makes responding to the comet politically appealing, the Orleans backpedal and enact a plan to knock the comet off its course with nuclear weapons. Hope is on the horizon.
Nevertheless, the dimwitted antics of President Orlean, comet conspiracy theorists and Zuckerbergian tech giant Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance) snuff out this glimmer of hope in chaotic fashion. The plan to subvert the comet is replaced with an ill-fated scheme to let the mineral-rich object strike Earth and, in Dibiasky’s words, “make a bunch of rich people even more disgustingly rich!” Despite their efforts, Dibiasky, Mindy and Oglethorpe can’t prevent Earth’s destruction. Anarchic human extinction ensues.
The film’s Oscar-nominated screenplay caters to an audience perfectly in tune with turmoil. Its witty political references and irreverent satire are rendered all too real by our nation’s worrisome distrust in climate experts and COVID-19 epidemiologists. DiCaprio and Lawrence’s portrayals of rage, panic and spite are utterly compelling. They’re angry at the powers that be, and they urge us to be angry too.
Looking at the score and cinematography, both exceed expectations. Tension is built with an imaginative combination of wide and tight shots, ranging from a massive rocket launch, to a close-up of Mindy wringing his hands nervously in the Oval Office.
The ethereal score complements the scenes depicting Comet Dibiasky’s journey across space. Alongside these scenes, compilations of Earth’s animal and plant life remind the audience of nature’s extraordinary power. Mother Nature will show resilience, dismantling and rebuilding herself in times of hardship. Whether humans are also able — or even willing — to change in light of those same hardships is another matter.
The film’s score certainly deserves the Oscar nomination it received. In contrast, while Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi’s musical contribution to the movie, the song “Just Look Up,” was understandably predicted to be a Best Original Song nominee, it never came to be. The stunning vocals and quintessential lyrics, “listen to the goddamn qualified scientists,” do their job for the film, but “Just Look Up” wouldn’t have stood a chance against nominees “Dos Oruguitas” from “Encanto” and “Be Alive” from “King Richard.”
As for the crowded Best Picture category, “Don’t Look Up,” is up against heavy hitters, including “Belfast,” “The Power of the Dog” and “King Richard.” Variety magazine ranks “Don’t Look Up” seventh out of the 10 nominees. Thrillist commentators add that McKay’s work certainly has a chance of winning, but it isn’t the frontrunner. However, Variety gives a slightly more optimistic prediction for the film’s Best Editing odds.
Variety and Thrillist’s assessments are more than likely correct. At least one nomination for the film wasn’t widely doubted, but the possibility of a Best Picture win on March 27 is certainly slim. Nonetheless, “Don’t Look Up” is a poignant indicator of the U.S.’s fractured national identity. It forces viewers to think critically about society’s anti-intellectualism, but it doesn’t lose its humorous, engaging quality in the process.
Oscar talk aside, the film itself is a must-watch for these trying times. Even if McKay’s social commentary isn’t your style, you can at least savor one thing about it: quality time with Hollywood’s golden boy, Timothée Chalamet, who unexpectedly graces our ears in the final act with his giddy line, “I f*cking love fingerling potatoes!”
Edited by Camila Fowler | cfowler@themaneater.com