Just Look Up

Actually the film's title is "Don't Look Up". It was released in December 2021 on Netflix and soon became a hit: one year later it was crowned as Netflix's second most watched film ever. Here's my thoughts on this film that's "based on truly possible events". Spoilers ahead.

Don't Look Up asks, and answers, the hypothetical question how we would react to the news that a giant comet is about to hit our planet and eradicate all human life. The film begins when two rather insignificant astronomers, Dr. Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and Phd. candidate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover the comet and that its inevitable impact will represent an Extinction Level Event or E.L.E. in six months time. I'll come back to that acronym later.

When the pair of scientists inform the president, Janie Orlean (Meryl Streep), of the impending catastrophe they're met with astounding indifference, as she's only interested in holding on to the presidency. When the scientists take their findings to the media, the news is treated in an unbecoming lighthearted manner by morning talk-show hosts Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry). When the President's chances of winning the next election are threatened by a sex-scandal, she decides to organize a mission to destroy the comet, but only as a means of redirecting the nation's attention away from the scandal and restoring her chances for electoral victory; "war presidents" are always re-elected after all.

However, the president, who's shown throughout the film to be a narcissistic and idiotic person who only acts on behalf of the wealthy in her own class, aborts the mission to save the human race shortly after. She does so at the instruction of Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance), the eccentric head of an Apple-like company called BASH, indicating how politicians are in fact puppets on the strings of their wealthy donors. Isherwell wants to destroy the comet in a controlled manner, as his corporation has discovered that it contains trillions of dollars worth of rare metals and minerals. The first mission had a decent chance of destroying or deflecting the comet, but Isherwell's plan has been designed in secret, and has not been peer reviewed by scientists at all.

Throughout the story we're constantly confronted with the hypocritical opportunism displayed by the ruling class of plutocrats, and how they use their power to misinform the public. At first the ominous news is treated as insignificant and it's even hinted at that the comet might not exist at all. It's hilarious and disheartening at the same time when at the beginning, when the president is informed about the comet, she first lets the scientists wait for a long time, and then starts debating the chance of the thing hitting the earth; it's only 99.78 percent, she argues, so there is a chance we won't be annihilated. We see the scientists slowly losing their minds in the face of this indifference in the politicians, the media and, consequently, the general public.

When the comet is finally visible in the sky, the scientists start their own campaign to "Just Look Up", certain that people will finally believe the truth of the comet when they see it with their own eyes. But the president immediately starts her own campaign called "Don't Look Up", aided by Peter Isherwell's BASH corporation, whose mobile phone has a large consumer base, reassuring the public that their plan will not only save humanity, but create unimaginable amounts of wealth and jobs. This creates two opposing factions among the population, with the "Pro Comet" crowd pitted against "Anti Comet" realists. This is depicted in the film when Dibiasky visits her parents and is not let in the door because they are Pro Comet and believe it will bring the wealth and jobs promised by the President and BASH.

When Isherwell's plan fails (of course it did), dr. Mindy is offered a spot on a rescue ship that's been constructed in secret as a "Plan B" in case the comet was not successfully broken up into manageable and mineable pieces; a select few will travel on that ship, in hibernation, through space looking for a habitable planet for humanity to start anew. Mindy refuses and chooses to spend his remaining time with his family and friends, among which are Dibiasky and her new boyfriend (Timothee Chalamet). They have a warm family diner as the comet strikes and life as we know it ends. There are two post-credits scenes, with the first showing the rescue ship landing on a lush, paradise-like planet some 23,000 years in the future. However, when the select few disembark they're soon surrounded and attacked by dinosaur-like predators, president Orlean being the first to die. The second post-credits scene shows the president's son, whom they forgot to take with them on the ship, making a selfie on his now disconnected BASH phone, proclaiming he's the last person alive on earth and crying for his mother.

The criticism in this film is clear, overshadowing all other aspects even, and shows how science is denied and catastrophe are made into a commodity for the short term profits of the wealthy ruling class. It's a screaming metaphor for climate deniers and anti-vaxxers who deny the science, and in doing so unknowingly play into the plans and hands of the ruling class who look down on them and only exploit them for financial or political gain. All the MAGA-hats who refused to wear masks or take the vaccine were swept into an anti-science frenzy by their political and cultural leaders. First they were made to believe the virus was a hoax, a conspiracy to control their lifes. And sure, governments and corporations will always use catastrophe to their own benefit; Big Pharma made billions selling the vaccine. But the deniers forget that buying into the hoax- or conspiracy-narrative is also falling for the brainwashing and the divide-and-conquer strategies of the ruling class. The same parallel can be drawn with climate science versus science deniers.

Don't Look Up perfectly translates the current sociopolitical climate into a hypothetical disaster that's also being used by the powerful to dupe, control and exploit the masses. What immediately struck me though, is the stark contrast this film draws with another film I saw about an impending Extinction Level Event or E.L.E. I told you I'd come back to that acronym. In the 1998 film Deep Impact, teenage amateur astronomer Leo Beiderman discovers an unidentified object in the night sky. He sends a picture to astronomer Dr. Marcus Wolf, who realizes it is a comet on collision course with Earth. Wolf dies in a car crash while racing to raise the alarm. Now, that film has almost exactly the same ingredients as Don't Look Up; it has the politics and its relationship with the media, the comet, the rescue mission, the backup plan and the attention to the response of ordinary people as well as powerful people. Only the corporation and the polarization are absent, and, to me at least, this says everything about the times in which these films were made, and how the sociopolitical landscape has completely transformed in such a short period.

In Deep Impact the human race isn't entirely destroyed, as only half the comet hits earth and the other half was destroyed by American astronauts and one Russian cosmonaut making the ultimate sacrifice. The president in Deep Impact, portrayed by Morgan Freeman, easily the best actor in that equally star-studded film, is genuinely trying to do what's best for the people who put him in office. Placing these movies side by side, the display of cynicism, loss of trust and hostility developed in 25 years is overwhelming. In Deep Impact the backup plan is open to the general public by ways of a lottery, whereas in Don't Look Up the powerful take care of themselves only. Leo Beiderman and his girlfriend survive whereas Dibiasky and her boyfriend are obliterated with the rest of the world's population.

Both films, despite the amount of high level actors in them, aren't extraordinary in my opinion. But They're both entertaining enough to justify the two hours they take to make their distinct messages clear. If you haven't seen them, I recommend you watch them both, starting with Deep Impact. If you've seen one of them, I recomment you watch the other one as well. In 1998 another film about an impending impact was released, Armageddon, which is entertaining as well and hangs in between Deep Impact and Don't look up in its cynical messaging about politics and the media. So maybe watch all three of them ;-)

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