Adam McKay has had such a fascinating career, going from the early days where he produced arguably the strongest comedies of the Judd Apatow stable, to now being a political troubadour with Best Picture nominated efforts like The Big Short and Vice. Taking his sort of “anything goes” attitude to prestige filmmaking (which admittedly, got duller and duller with each successive comedic effort) was a refreshing change for a creative headed towards stagnation. I particularly admire The Big Short’s ability to take something as complex as the 2008 financial collapse and turn it into compelling drama, and my love of Vice – genuinely one of the most watchable political biopics I’ve seen – is well documented. To be honest, he was due a misstep. But, my god, I had no idea he would trip up so hard as to literally break his own ass. This is where his latest for Netflix, Don’t Look Up, leaves us.
Do you remember the mid-credits scene of Vice? The one where it centers on a focus group that includes Trump supporters criticizing the movie? It’s a deeply unfunny bit that ends perhaps his most successful film on a tremendously sour note. Imagine he made an entire movie pitched just like that, and you get Don’t Look Up.
A light science fiction tale, Don’t Look Up kicks off when astronomer Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) and PhD candidate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) discover a comet is headed on a collision course with Earth. After reaching out to the federal government, they and fellow scientist Dr. “Teddy” Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) meet with the White House to share these findings. But what they find is a President (Meryl Streep) who cares more about her party’s chances in the midterms than the serious threat to humanity. And so, they go rogue and leak the information to the press, sparking a nationwide discourse, and eventually a panic. How McKay colors in the lines in the premise is what proves to be Don’t Look Up’s undoing.
Every filmmaker at some point feels they have to craft a piece of art that comments on the current moment. It’s a natural thing. Art reflects the world you live in, it’s unavoidable, but there has to be a point where that same filmmaker stops and says “what am I actually trying to say?” Here, the fictionalized global catastrophe that is clearly a metaphor for the COVID-19 pandemic basically amounts to a 2-hour punching down session. McKay thinks very little of the MAGA crowd, and in Don’t Look Up, he lampoons them as deniers of the oncoming global apocalypse. The title of the film is even their catchphrase. But this need to make them the butt of a largely unfunny and obvious joke that drives so much of the film misses a key component of satire – in order to actually be subversive, you need to do more than just regurgitate what we see on Cable News all day and every day. When your fictional reality is basically copy and pasted from our actual reality, what the hell is the point? You don’t have to be subtle, but you should at least aim to be sharp. It just smacks of laziness.
Putting aside its weaktea political ponderings, Don’t Look Up is an oddbird. It feels like McKay is trying hard to be funny again. The Big Short and Vice had humorous moments, but they were hardly uproarious comedies. This time around, McKay has attempted to bridge the two halves of his career. Sadly his funnybone has all but disappeared as well. Maybe the most fatal flaw of the film is that nary a joke lands outside of a good recurring bit about White House snacks and a few very off-color lines from Ron Perlman. What we’re left with is a parade of celebrity appearances (Perlman, Cate Blanchett, Tyler Perry, Timothee Chalamet, Mark Rylance, Jonah Hill, Ariana Grande) hopping aboard the McKay train, playing off-putting cartoonish characters that become increasingly difficult to bear as the running time ticks on. And all the while, DiCaprio and Lawrence have to carry this overly burdened beast on their backs and try to create something bordering an emotional throughline. It’s a huge mess.
I’m actually reminded quite a bit of Alexander Payne’s infamous debacle Downsizing, which was his own light science fiction attempt at a grand statement of the American condition, following a pair of Best Picture nominees on his resume. It was a disaster, and a prime example of reach exceeding grasp. The parallels between these two films ring out so clearly, it was my initial thought as soon as the credits hit. This is another case of a director not understanding the limits of their storytelling abilities, and much like Payne’s enormous flop a few years ago, this is easily the worst film of McKay’s career.
And boy, if you thought the Vice mid-credits scene was bad, wait till you see the one nestled in here. I’m still embarrassed for everyone involved.
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