Cast: Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Cate Blanchett, Ariana Grande, Meryl Streep, Timothée Chalamet, Mark Rylance
Director: Adam McKay
Language: English
This is a cast that makes you look up. There is Leonardo DiCaprio as Dr. Randall Mindy, an astronomer from Michigan State University. There is Jennifer Lawrence as Kate Dibiasky, Dr. Mindy’s PHD student. Then there is Meryl Streep, as the irreverent US President and Mark Rylance, the tech genius who eerily represents another tech entrepreneur that we all know and wonder about, and many more big names from Hollywood, who do their parts.
It all starts with Dr. Mindy and Dibiasky stumbling upon a discovery – a comet hurtling towards Earth. Amidst rising panic about impending gloom and bearing the weight of the knowledge of a deadly comet, the two go on a quest to make the President understand the magnitude of this catastrophe. They then go on media tours to make people and decision-makers understand the issue at hand. Even as tempers run loose and money-making corrupt politicians disrupt all plans, nothing changes, and the comet strikes.
It is almost poetic to see DiCaprio as a geeky professor, who has panic attacks before talking to the media and bureaucrats. DiCaprio lives and breathes as Dr. Mindy, and his real-life passion for all things Environment seeps through his acting. Watch out for the scene where he loses his cool in front of real-time television about impending gloom, and the scene where he explains to his wife that he is having an affair. DiCaprio is comfortable in his acting chops, and this is evident in ‘Don’t Look Up’.
Jennifer Lawrence as the tattoo-sporting astronomer is a delight to watch. Mark Rylance as the billionaire techpreneur is marvellous with his quirks and nonchalance with anything apart from money. And Meryl Streep as the inefficient President with her son as the Chief of Staff is both ridiculous and fun to watch.
All goes well in Don’t Look Up, until the satire becomes almost monotonous. It does seem slightly incredulous at one point, and that’s when the film loses steam. While this is a cry to ineffective governments and the reality of climate change, there are also some scenes that do not sync well with the plotline and veer away from the goal. I found Cate Blanchett’s role as the TN anchor superfluous and the corresponding scenes of her romance with DiCaprio unnecessary. We soon realise that there is only this much of fun you can have at the expense of a catastrophe. Flat jokes also plague this screenplay, and there is such a thing as too many star cast members in one movie. But the real disappointment was the role given to Timothée Chalamet. His anti-government slogans apart, he surely deserved a better part in this movie, than just a few token moments.
What made this satire seem a bit real, is the ending, where they show the world as literally ending. There is no American hero out to save the world, no NASA mission that sends miners up to nuke the comet. The plot reiterates that nothing much can be done once it’s too late, especially when it comes to the Environment.
The Armageddon-ish Don’t Look Up must have been a cake walk for DiCaprio, but not much for the rest of us. When DiCaprio says, “What do these trillions of dollars matter if we’re all going to die with the impact of this comet?”, it does hit where it hurts.
The movie is currently streaming on Netflix.
Rating: 2.5/5
