Dr. Kate Dibiasky sits in her position with the parsimony of the work routine. With music and coffee through, he reviews some data, moves on to something else, until he takes a look through the telescope. What he discovers becomes a cause for celebration for his colleagues, colleagues, fellows and even for the astronomer, professor, head of that department and Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), who after reviewing some coordinates, reaches a no longer encouraging conclusion: with the fall of that comet, the entire planet will be destroyed in 6 months, 14 days. Faced with this catastrophic panorama, the pair of scientists – ignored by dozens of authorities – manage to reach NASA, obtain the consensus of their colleagues, and get to have a meeting with the president of the United States, a frivolous and suggestively Republican Janie Orlean (played with the charisma of Meryl Streep), along with her son Jason (Jonah Hill) occupying a high political position. Meeting in which the government dismisses the matter and sends them to “wait and analyze”.
Desperate, Dibiasky and Mindy intend to initiate an urgent media action to make the news known to the world, but looking for them to open their eyes will not be a simple or free task.
“Don’t Look Up”
This is what “Don’t Look Up” is all about, the new film by director Adam McKay (“The Big Bet,” “The Vice President”) who through his well-personal acid humor engages with very contemporary but taken to extreme issues: such as the extinction of the planet, the value of science, and the advancement of cell phone companies capable of controlling the world’s databases. The result: a science fiction satire that, as crazy as it sounds, is in the same way plausible and even identifiable in these times. Let’s expand this a bit. For some time the planet has been giving warning signs, even DiCaprio himself is one of the most committed actors about sustainable problems and actions.
Meryl Streep on “Don’t Look Up”
On the other hand, the richest and most powerful people in the world are none other than those who own the most of our information: Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and even Mark Zuckerberg. And not coincidentally, the first was one of those who was already exploring traveling to space, which connects very well with the end of the film.
Now, the film delves into this question: what do you feel if you find out that your world ends in six months? And the development of this question is quite realistic, being one of the strongest points of fiction: it is excellent how from the government and then the media deny space to the news, to such an extent that the most important thing of that week was the separation between two artists (played by Ariana Grande, Appearance furor by the film, and Kid Cudi) Any similarity with the WandaGate is pure coincidence.
Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi in “No Miren Arriba”
A brilliant and this time redhead Jennifer Lawrence -winner of the Oscar- plays the astronomer Dibiasky, whose name baptizes the comet. A character who sheds female stereotypes to use her knowledge, being frontal, forceful and forming an extremely interesting duo with the touch of an always intense DiCaprio, every time she undertakes a new role. The also winner of the Hollywood Academy Award, achieves a transformation not only psychic of his character, who we see evolve throughout the film -from the initial scenes in which he is short of breath every time he wants to talk about the comet, to become the most consulted scientist of the government and the media-, but also physical, a real success that once again confirms that DiCaprio is not only a pretty face of the industry but an actor with a force of his own that overturns every time the clapper marks the beginning of the action.
“Don’t Look Up”
With moments reminiscent of the outbreak of the pandemic -due to the initial denial and the recurrent appearance of scientists in television programs-, with the political dye present -which in the film is located in an electoral time, an issue that in Argentina in a certain way touches closely-, with a cast that is (along with “Dune”) of the most enormous of the year, and with issues that are urgent to analyze but not to wait, “Don’t Look Up” explodes like a comet on Netflix, the most preponderant platform in the market. And in McKay’s universe his stars are several: Rob Morgan, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet (once again playing a well-known young anarchist).ta or anti-system, reminiscent of “Lady Bird”) Cate Blanchett.
“Don’t Look Up”
The title of the film is just as interesting. While science in almost all of its cases rejects religion, both are a theme in history, relating them in that “believing in something”. Beliefs are a topic that is up for debate in the plot: it is up to the government to believe in astronomers, and astronomers in their data, and viewers in information. In turn, in the face of an episode as alarming as the end of the world as we know it, we always want something to cling to, and that’s where faith comes in. Even, in the search for answers in heaven.
“Don’t Look Up” is a realistic satire that comes with the advance of a new variable of the coronavirus, and that challenges us to question where they want us to look and where we are looking.
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