Don’t Look Up
Look up and see the truth or look down and see the lies. ‘Don’t Look Up’ is a perfect mirror of our society. There are the ones who deny everything, even science, and the ones who actually believe in the rules of physics and mathematics. It doesn’t need a comet to witness that, all it takes is a pandemic.
Imagine scientists would discover a massive comet drifting towards earth that would extinct all life on our planet. What would happen in the six months we would have left? Right! The media would deny everything or present it as a joke, rich people would try to benefit from the event, people would divide because of politics and the president, well the president would do exactly what Trump did all the time. Manipulate, lie and deny.
In the cast: Leonardo DiCaprio as Randall Mindy, Jennifer Lawrence as Kate Dibiasky, Timothée Chalamet as Yule, Jonah Hill as Jason Orlean, Meryl Streep as Janie Orlean, Cate Blanchett as Brie Evantee, Mark Rylance as Peter Isherwell, Tyler Perry as Jack Bremmer, Rob Morgan as Dr. Teddy Oglethrope and Ariana Grande as Riley Bina. Quite a huge cast to be fair, yet none of them feel unnecessary or misplaced. They all get enough screen time measured to their role and importance for the plot. Especially Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence stand out in this comedy-disaster.
No matter what you expect of the humanity within the film, they will be even dumber. I had so much fun watching the growing desparity in the scientists’ eyes. Of course, the film exaggerates humanity’s reactions to such an event. Nevertheless, it’s not unrealistic and that scares me. We already had Trump at the top of the American government, we don’t do enough to protect the climate, we don’t care. Seriously, would humanity really try to save our planet or do we just pretend to care while we all benefit from its destruction? We won’t be living when things get life-threatening here. Maybe even our children won’t. However, we can’t stop it, if we are not ready to get rid of our beloved toys like planes, streaming services, or cheap products. We all would have to agree on similar terms for the protection of climate change which is honestly not going to happen before it’s already too late.
So, we are all going to die one day. Maybe not you or me but maybe our grandchildren or their grandchildren. Either way, what would we do when we accept it? We would just continue living like nothing’s gonna happen. Gathering our families we would pretend not to know. These are only some of the questions ‘Don’t Look Up’ raises and answers in its own way. There is much discussion potential in the film, just as it contains many lessons for us to keep in mind when we discuss problems in our world. If you ask me, we should rather look up to the stars and seek our fortune in space travel, even when it takes generations until we reach another planet that fits our requirements of life. As Cooper from my favourite film ‘Interstellar’ said: “Mankind was born on Earth, it was never meant to die here.”
‘Don’t Look Up’ is a wonderful film to close 2021. Much better than ‘The Matrix Ressurections‘ and with many more messages for us to embrace. It is like Leonardo DiCaprio screamed at us to engage in saving not our lives but the ones from the generations that are yet to come.