Don’t Look Up: A slapstick telling of an end-of-days story

'Don't Look Up', directed by Adam McKay, is one of the most divisive films of 2021. A mixture of several genres such as dark comedy, disaster, political satire, science fiction and drama, the film is streaming on Netflix as number one in Bangladesh as of this week. 

The film's story is about Kate Dibiasky's (Jennifer Lawrence) discovery of a six to 10 kilometers long comet rushing towards the earth. 

Misinterpreting this discovery as something great, Kate's discovery gets examined by her PhD supervisor, Dr Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), who is a Michigan State University astronomy professor. Dr Mindy definitively finds out that the comet will hit the earth with an absolute chance of destroying all of humanity. 

As they communicate with NASA, the news also reaches the White House. Tedd Oglethorpe, the head of NASA's Planetary Defense Coordination Office and scientist, actively stands by the two, supporting them in their quest. 

He flies Kate to Nasa and Dr Mindy goes to Washington DC to meet the President. After much delay, the President (Meryl Streep) finally meets them. 

When Dr Mindy describes the real situation, the President and her Chief of Staff - her son, Jason Orlean (Jonah Hill), are completely unmoved by the situation. They decide to "sit tight and assess" the situation. 

This angers Kate and Mindy, which compels them to go public by revealing the discovery at a talk show. 

However, it is clear once again, that people no longer prefer to take news like this seriously due to several such speculations about the end of humanity in the past. 

The talk show anchors, Cate Blanchet and Tyler Perry, rather make a big fuss about other entertainment industry news, overlooking the big danger that is dangling over everyone's heads. 

Then the story takes a turn into chaotic sarcasm that only calms down towards the end of the movie and ends with a slapstick comic scene. 

In some parts, the film seemed aimless, especially after the talk show interview. There is a sudden disinterest in the narrative. 

However, there are several serious bits that the audiences will like. The strength of the film lies in its treatment of the contemporary context and temperament of the characters. 

The premise of the film is nothing new. We have seen similar themed films like Stephen Spielburg's 'Deep Impact' (1998), Sean Connery starrer 'Meteor' (1979) and critically panned but commercially successful 'Armageddon' (1998). 

These films had a serious undertone to their narrative which is not the case for 'Don't Look Up', which has hilarious elements aligned with speculative reality. 

Adam McKay wrote and directed the play from David Sirota's story. He managed a star-studded cast to create a provocative comedy that uses the disaster theme to underline deeply impacted metaphors like the climate change, collective narcissism, people's participation in meaningless ordeals rather than real issues. 

This film also attacked politicians who think about their gains and not the people, attention-seeking crazy celebrities and media personalities who only care about fame and social media reach. 

The film also criticises tech billionaires who seem to think of themselves as Earth's saviours. Peter Isherwell (Mark Rylance) struck the perfect balance between Steve Jobs, Mark Zuckerburg and Elon Musk, although less charming with an unsettling voice, which has made this film fun to watch. 

Another strength of the film lies in its deliberate structure of storytelling which most audiences may find boring and flat. 

Perhaps Mackey wants to detox us from the grasp of social media and the 'always adrenaline and attention' culture. 

The last sentence delivered by Dr Mindy is perhaps the real message McKay wanted us to understand, when he said, "We really did have everything, didn't we? I mean, when you think about it..." 

There are subtleties in the film that may inspire other films of the same genre. 

The nature of the unsettling-sublime narrative of the film should be closely watched if someone plans to watch it for a second time. 

There is also a satire in the end that heavily critiqued the reliance on the predictability of artificial intelligence.