It is churlish of me not to be happy when a movie about the climate crisis comes along. Don't Look Up is a laboured, self-conscious and unrelaxed satire that McKay co-produced, but it is not as serious as Succession, which McKay co-produced. The crisis can only be represented in self-awareness and slapstick mode.
Don't Look Up is a comedy about two astronomer who discover that a comet is going to wipe out all human life in six months. The political and media classes can't or won't understand what the scientists are saying because they are too focused on the interests of big tech. Leonardo DiCaprio plays an astronomer who is addicted to drugs. Kate Dibiasky is a graduate student. The panto-villain president is a woman, the son is a chief-of-staff, and the man is a tech mogul.
The comet is a metaphor for the climate catastrophe. It is no longer a stretch to compare global heating to a piece of blazing rock heading our way, because of the clear danger of global heating. This is not like the 1998 film Deep Impact, which had a similar story, but it is more conscious of its satirical importance. The pointed wackiness means that it isn't really working at its own level of megaphone comedy, which is presented as the only workable medium for its politically serious and unfunny message.
The spectacle of the opening act is startling and based on fact. In his recent documentary Fireball: Visitors from Darker Worlds, Werner Herzog said that the US government policy is to launch missiles at incoming asteroids. This policy is not disturbing but, as this film suggests, what is worrying is that the erosion of our ability to react in time is happening right now. As Randall and Kate prepare to go on a TV show and find everyone talking about a pop star's failed relationship, you get a sense of their suppressed delirium. They have taken a pill. Time is running out for everyone else.
There are some political points to be made. The obnoxious political bro of the Trumpite party addresses his base, describing what he sees as the three estates in today's world: "There's you, the working classes; there's us, the cool rich, and there's them."
I was reminded of the film Melancholia, which is similar to Don't Look Up, when I saw it. Von Trier's film chose a more interesting and disturbing mode of dark comedy, and I am sorry that I didn't see the connection with climate change in 2011. The film could have done more convincing if it had a mode of reverse-vertigo that was hints at in its title. Critical objections are unimportant if the movie helps to change the world.
Don't Look Up will be available on the internet from December 10 to December 24.
