Every day we know that we begin to live and that we could die: an accident in the car or at work, a terrorist and any madman who crosses us, a heart attack or a stroke, the usual flowerpot falling from a windowsill, and so on. .
Yet we go on as if nothing had happened and what else could we do? Even taking all caution would not guarantee our safety. So when someone shows us that, due to global warming, in 50 years our planet will be unlivable and natural disasters will happen that will cost millions of deaths, let alone if we break up.
But if we were told that a meteorite is about to crash into Earth in six months (like Deep Impact, Meteor or Love Wanted for the End of the World), how would we react? Still with the same shrug?
A reserved astronomy professor and one of his best students, both slightly nerdy and provincial types (they come from the less prestigious University of Michigan), accidentally make a chilling discovery. From the sidereal distances of space, a meteor is arriving which, according to precise calculations, will hit our planet with effects greater than those of the times of the dinosaurs. There are only about six months to find a remedy, what to do?
We turn to the authorities, of course. The first body they are put in contact with is the Department for the Defense of the Planet, which is not a comic book thing but really exists, in the person of the manager Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan, seen in Stranger Things), the serious guy who immediately believes in two scientists and get them an appointment at the White House. But where a woman reigns, a Trump-like President (the usual sublime Meryl Streep), much more attentive to polls and re-election than to save the world, which she governs with a system based on nepotism and corruption.
In fact, only the largest lenders have access to the magic circle. Among these is Isherwell (Mark Rylance), electronics tycoon inventor of telephones that perceive our emotions, media guru, sociopath attributable to many well-known personalities, from Jobs to Zuckerberg or Musk.
After being mocked, deceived and arrested, the two are finally taken seriously and an Armageddon-style mission is organized, with a right-wing fanatic in the place of Bruce Willis (a hilarious appearance by Ron Perlman), complete with a quote from a famous scene from Doctor Strangelove. But Isherwell has another idea, which causes a further delay in the intervention and makes the two tormented protagonists understand the madness that surrounds them. Which is not only that of the System but which involves a whole humanity, which becomes more deserving of extinction every day.
Meanwhile in the skies the comet becomes visible in all its chilling beauty and can be seen with the naked eye. Panic explodes, with the usual looting and vandalism. Look Up becomes the motto of those who see it, the comet, of those who look at it and understand what is about to happen. Don’t Look Up, on the other hand, is the message of the criminals in power and the idiotic masses who follow them, indoctrinated to look only in front of them, one step after another, with their heads down, even ignoring the evidence. How will it end? A short, funny scene follows after the first block of credits.
The cast is very large, with a string of stars including a Leonardo Di Caprio who enjoys being a resigned professor a little overweight and with a neglected look, who however loses his head in contact with the sirens of power. Also because a very famous news anchor, a real mermaid (Cathe Blanchett), falls in love with him and makes him deviate from his virtuous path.
Jennifer Lawrence is the brilliant researcher a bit truzza, passionate and not used to compromise. Surprisingly, he will meet a pseudo-rebellious boy (Timothée Chalamet), spoiled and contradictory. Ariana Grande is the snooty social diva, empty and aggressive. Jonah Hill is the unhappy son of the President, whom she has done to do damage at a very high level.
Adam McKey had given us an understandable explanation of the subprime scandal with The Big Short, had effectively told us the figure of Dick Cheney and had produced the splendid Succession series, demonstrating a good knowledge of the billionaires and politicians environment. Here he co-writes and directs the film thinking about global warming, a threat that scares too few because it is experienced as something far away (incredible at least by those who have children).
But surprisingly, the pandemic has arrived, a more immediate problem, almost concrete we would say, and therefore it is really sadly hilarious to find how the behavior of the powerful, the media and the people are the same towards the (metaphorical) threat of a rock of 10 km in diameter. that is rolling in space towards us, indisputably.
We had it all, the character Di Caprio will say at one point disheartened. Yet, in a moment we can throw everything away for the stupidity of the powerful, arrogant and cynical, for the ignorance of the masses, fomented by right and left equally blind, for the superficiality of the media for which it is only important to make a spectacle even of a tragedy .
Not to mention the abyss of social media and its insipid “stars” with the insult always ready, the violence a millimeter away, in the indifference of man, from that of the street which is basically not willing to change a comma of his behavior, to the rich people who would like to make money on anything.
Don’t Look Up is not an apocalyptic film but a bitter and witty metaphor of the ineptitude of power, of the weakness of those who know and of the responsibilities attributed to truly incapable ones, of the weight that unfortunately the masses of the ignorant have, of the responsibilities of information , of humanity in general, unable to look up and, if it does, look at the finger and not the meteor. Try to make a comparison with what you have read, heard and seen in these months of pandemic and be discouraged or laugh (bitterly).
Leo’s answer to the usual conspiracy theorist will remain in your memory: “They” are not smart enough to be so evil.
#Dont #Review #Leo #world