Don't Look Up

Don't Look Up is a 2021 American political satire black comedy film written, co-produced, and directed by Adam McKay from a story he co-wrote with David Sirota. It stars an ensemble cast featuring Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, Rob Morgan, Jonah Hill, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet, Ron Perlman, Ariana Grande, Kid Cudi, Cate Blanchett, and Meryl Streep. In the film, it tells the story of two astronomers attempting to warn humanity about an approaching comet that will destroy human civilization.

The movie's central comet impact event was used by McKay as an allegory for threats arising from climate change. The film satirizes government, political, celebrity, and media indifference, in particular to the climate crisis, but with further synergy with regard to responses to science during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Produced by McKay's Hyperobject Industries and Bluegrass Films, the film was announced in November 2019. Originally set for a theatrical release by Paramount Pictures, the distribution rights were acquired by Netflix several months later. Lawrence became the first member of the cast to join, with DiCaprio signing on after his discussions with McKay on adjustments to the script; the rest of the cast was added through 2020. Filming was initially set to begin in April 2020 in Massachusetts, but it was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic; it eventually began in November 2020 and wrapped in February 2021.

Don't Look Up began a limited theatrical release on December 10, 2021, before streaming on Netflix on December 24. It was praised for the cast's performances and the musical score, but critics were divided on the merits of McKay's satire: some found it deft, while others criticized it as smug and heavy-handed. Donna Lu of The Guardian notes that the movie "received a frosty reception from many film critics", while being thoroughly lauded by climate activists. Don't Look Up was named one of the top ten films of 2021 by the National Board of Review and American Film Institute. It received four Academy Award nominations (including Best Picture), four Golden Globe Award nominations (including Best Picture – Musical or Comedy), six Critics' Choice Award nominations, (including Best Picture), and also won Best Original Screenplay at the 74th Writers Guild of America Awards. The film set a new record for the most viewing hours in a single week on Netflix, and went on to become the second-most-watched movie on Netflix within 28 days of release.

Plot

Kate Dibiasky, a doctoral candidate in astronomy at Michigan State University, discovers a previously unknown comet. Her adviser, Dr. Randall Mindy, confirms that it will collide with Earth in approximately six months and is large enough to cause a global extinction event. NASA verifies the findings, and Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, head of their Planetary Defense Coordination Office, accompanies Dibiasky and Mindy to present their findings to the White House. However, they are met with apathy from President Janie Orlean and her Chief of Staff Jason Orlean, who is also her son.

Oglethorpe encourages Dibiasky and Mindy to leak the news to the media, which they then do, on The Daily Rip, a popular morning talk show. When hosts Jack Bremmer and Brie Evantee treat the topic lightly, Dibiasky loses her temper and angrily rants about the threat before she flees the scene. Mindy receives public approval for his looks, while Dibiasky becomes the subject of negative memes for her on-air behavior. Public reaction is muted, and the whole thing is downplayed by NASA Director Jocelyn Calder, a top donor to Orlean with no background in astronomy. When Orlean's sexual relations with Supreme Court nominee Sheriff Conlon hit the front page, the president tries to divert public attention to the looming threat of the comet, announcing a project to use nuclear weapons to strike and divert the comet.

The mission successfully launches, but Orlean abruptly aborts it when Peter Isherwell, the billionaire CEO of BASH Cellular and another top donor, discovers that the comet contains trillions of dollars' worth of rare-earth elements. The White House agrees to commercially exploit the comet by fragmenting and recovering it from the ocean, using technology proposed by BASH in a scheme that has not undergone peer review. Orlean sidelines Dibiasky and Oglethorpe while hiring Mindy as the National Science Advisor. Dibiasky attempts to mobilize public opposition to the scheme but gives up under threat from Orlean's administration. Mindy becomes a prominent voice advocating for the comet's commercial opportunities and begins an affair with Evantee.

World opinion is divided among people who believe the comet is a severe threat, those who decry alarmism and believe that mining a destroyed comet will create jobs, and those who deny that the comet even exists. When Dibiasky returns home to Illinois, her parents kick her out of the house and she begins a relationship with a young man named Yule, a skateboarder, shoplifter, and Evangelical she meets at her retail job. Mindy's wife comes to Washington to confront him about his infidelity, but returns to Michigan without him. Mindy questions whether Isherwell's technology will be able to break apart the comet, angering the billionaire. Becoming frustrated with the administration, Mindy finally breaks down and rants on The Daily Rip, criticizing Orlean for downplaying the impending apocalypse and questioning humanity's indifference.

Cut off from the administration, Mindy reconciles with Dibiasky as the comet becomes visible from Earth. Mindy, Dibiasky, and Oglethorpe organize a protest campaign on social media, telling people to "Just Look Up" and call on other countries to conduct comet interception operations. Simultaneously, Orlean starts an anti-campaign telling people "Don't Look Up". Oglethorpe informs Mindy and Dibiasky that Orlean and BASH cut Russia, India, and China out of the rights for the comet-mining deal, so those countries prepared their own joint deflection mission—only for their spacecraft to explode on takeoff, ending the possibility of a successful deflection. As the comet becomes larger in the sky, Orlean's supporters start turning on her administration.

BASH's launches aimed at breaking the comet apart go awry, and everyone, beginning with Isherwell and Orlean in the flight control center, soon realizes that humanity is doomed. Isherwell, Orlean, and other elites board a sleeper spaceship designed to find an Earth-like planet; unthinkingly, Orlean leaves her son Jason behind. Orlean offers Mindy two places on the ship, but he declines, choosing to spend a final evening with his wife and children, and friends Oglethorpe, Dibiasky, and Yule. As expected, the comet strikes off the coast of Chile, causing a worldwide disaster and triggering an explosive extinction-level event, with globally catastrophic scenes being shown prior to the obliteration of the Mindy family gathering.

In a mid-credits scene, Orlean, Isherwell and the surviving people who left Earth land on a lush alien planet 22,740 years later. Exiting naked and admiring the habitable world, Orlean is suddenly killed by a large, bird-like creature—a death predicted earlier by BASH's algorithms—and a further pack of the creatures surrounds and begins to converge on the planetary newcomers. In a post-credits scene on Earth, Jason emerges from the rubble, having survived the impact. He records himself, declaring himself the "last man on Earth", and asking any viewers still alive to "like and subscribe".

Cast

• Leonardo DiCaprio as Dr. Randall Mindy, an astronomy professor at Michigan State University (MSU) and Kate's teacher
• Jennifer Lawrence as Kate Dibiasky, an MSU doctoral candidate in astronomy
• Meryl Streep as Janie Orlean, the President of the United States.
• Cate Blanchett as Brie Evantee, co-host of The Daily Rip
• Rob Morgan as Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe, head of the Planetary Defense Coordination Office
• Jonah Hill as Jason Orlean, the White House Chief of Staff and President Orlean's son.
• Mark Rylance as Peter Isherwell, the billionaire CEO of the fictitious tech company BASH and one of Orlean's top donors.
• Tyler Perry as Jack Bremmer, the co-host of The Daily Rip
• Timothée Chalamet as Yule, a young shoplifter whom Kate befriends
• Ron Perlman as Colonel Benedict Drask, war veteran and Presidential Medal of Freedom recipient who is sent up with the initial launch to divert the comet
• Ariana Grande as Riley Bina, an international pop music star
• Kid Cudi (credited as his real name Scott Mescudi) as DJ Chello, an international rapper who becomes Riley's fiancé on The Daily Rip
• Himesh Patel as Phillip Kaj, a journalist at Autopsy and Kate's boyfriend
• Melanie Lynskey as June Mindy, Dr. Randall Mindy's wife
• Michael Chiklis as Dan Pawketty, the host of the conservative Patriot News Network
• Tomer Sisley as Adul Grelio, the senior editor at the New York Herald
• Paul Guilfoyle as US Air Force Lieutenant General Stuart Themes, the Pentagon liaison to the White House
• Robert Joy as Congressman Tenant, a congressman and follower of Janie

Other cast members include Kevin Craig West as the Secretary of State; Erik Parillo as Sheriff Conlon, Orlean's choice for Supreme Court Justice who ends up in a sex scandal with Orlean; Jon Glaser as Meow Man; Sarah Nolen as the puppeteer of Sammy; Allyn Burrows as Mr. Dibiasky, the father of Kate; and Tori Davis Lawlor as Mrs. Dibiasky, the mother of Kate.