Don’t Look Up scored four Oscar nominations: Best Original Screenplay, Best Film Editing, Best Score, Best Picture. The Adam McKay vehicle is a star-studded feature that’s very divisive amongst fans and critics. Currently, the Netflix exclusive has a 55% on rotten tomatoes, which doesn’t sound exactly like a movie that should be nominated for a Best Picture Oscar. However, critics aren’t the judge, jury, and executioner when it comes to whether a film or show is good or not. So, is the Leonardo DiCaprio feature worthy of its Oscar nominations?
To recall, Don’t Look Up is about an astronomy grad student who makes a huge discovery of a comet that’s making a direct collision towards Earth. Kate Dibiasky and Dr. Randall Mindy try their hardest to warn the world about the planet-killing comet, but it comes across as an inconvenient fact that everyone has a hard time accepting until it’s too late. Now, I will give credit to where credit is due, Don’t Look Up has a stellar cast, and more importantly, Adam McKay uses them well. Don’t Look Up is a satire first and foremost and the hits strongly outweigh the misses. From the news anchors, Cate Blanchett and Tyler Perry, to the annoying (in a good way) celebrity TMZ level drama between Ariana Grande and Kid Cudi, who deliver a riotously funny original song, Look Up. Then there’s the ignorant, self-absorbed, dim wit president (Meryl Streep) and her equally incompetent son Jason (Jonah Hill), everyone in the cast has something to do and the film never feels crowded despite the huge names that crowd the feature.
Don’t Look Up is essentially the modern version of Mike Judge’s Idiocracy. Granted, humanity isn’t full of dummies in the Netflix exclusive, but it’s a fascinating thing to study how people choose to ignore facts over their selfish needs. The world is dying, and yet, the President is throwing a campaign telling the world to not look up because her non-reaction makes her look bad. It’s actually a strong commentary on the world at hand and it’s understandable why this is such a divisive film. For example, currently, we’re in the midst of a fat acceptance movement. The term, health at every size, is consistently thrown around despite the fact that this is completely false. According to a study from the World Health Organization, obesity is second to smoking as a cause of premature death in North America and Europe. Obesity can cause cardiovascular diseases such as heart disease, which is one of the leading causes of death. Yet, various celebrities and media outlets are promoting being overweight as healthy despite the alarming facts proven about obesity. People are choosing selfishness to guide them. Don’t Look Up is a mirror of what’s going on in the world and how humanity is ultimately the true killer of society. Sure, a comet is coming to wipe them out of existence, but had the President taken this seriously and acted upon this moment sooner than the destruction of mankind could’ve been avoided.
Is the message a bit heavy-handed? At times. One criticism is that Adam McKay should’ve trusted his audiences more instead of trying to spell out the obvious. Another problem is the focus on Mindy’s relationship with his wife and kids. In fact, I didn’t know the professor had kids until the climax of the film! It’s kind of hard to feel anything for their relationship when the film doesn’t spend time with the family as a whole. All is good and well by the end of the film (except the whole destruction thing), but Dr. Mindy comes across as a douche for cheating on his wife for no good reason. Leonardo DiCaprio is great so it’s not particularly hard to get invested in him in the role, but his character isn’t exactly the strongest. Streep and Hill’s characters are outrageous and dim-witted purposely to get across the message, whereas Dr. Mindy doesn’t come off on the best light because of his affair. Jennifer Lawrence and Timothee Chalamet’s relationship is…odd. I get why they got together. If it’s the end of the world then you’ll likely hook-up with the first hot person you’ll see too, but they seemed like a mismatched pairing and their developing relationship doesn’t feel genuine.
Still, those criticisms didn’t ruin the overall experience of Don’t Look Up. Is it an Oscar nominated worthy film? Meh. To be clear, this is genuinely a very good film with a strong message. It just never felt Oscar worthy like past Netflix movies such as Roma, The Irishman, or Beasts of No Nation (though it wasn’t nominated for an Oscar). Either way, it’s a film you shouldn’t miss.Oscar nominations
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