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“Don’t Look Up”: A True Apocalyptic Satire About the End of the World with Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence, and Meryl Streep

The political satires of Adam McKay, who gave us The Big Short and Power, have long been beloved by Hollywood, so his new movie Don’t Look Up’s participation in the Oscar race was perhaps obvious before. premiere. And while the decidedly polar views and cold-blooded audience wouldn’t quite let it be called a triumphant one, it still garnered four nominations, including Best Picture (although it didn’t win any in the end).

“Don’t Look” Adam McKay did it to his own plan, previously tested on multiple tapes: he tackled a serious topic, watered down with jokes, and mildly denounced an important statement. But if the same “Power” or “The Great Short” has a historical background (plots about one of the most influential politicians in America and the financial crisis), then this movie is based on fictional events: graduate student Kate Dibiasky and her mentor flying towards Earth they discover a comet and according to their calculations it will destroy all life in six months and two weeks, but the American president is in no hurry to act and our heroes are turning to the public through the press.

Here, satire plays to the maximum, sometimes even exaggerating, so hyperbolic images and sometimes ridiculous dialogues and situations that seem more like nonsense – another director could make a Golden Raspberry nomination from such a set, but not Adam McKay, excellent processing-like material. Hands down, it still remains humorous to mock the audience’s obvious facts, and they’re given seriousness (here as much as possible) by an excellent cast in the person of Jennifer Lawrence, Meryl Streep, and Leonardo DiCaprio. For whom, participation in this film is also an attempt to draw attention to environmental problems. Who else could play caricatures of modern reality this way, without slipping into low-grade frank parodies?

“Don’t Look Up”

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the secondary characters: they do not look sincere, they do not always turn out to be funny, and more often they show an ideal example of what, in order to leave a mark and impress the memory of the audience. It’s called bad or ridiculous satire. The exceptions, though not exhaustive, are perhaps Timothée Chalamet and Rob, played by the popular TV host, the president’s son (and right hand), played by Jonah Hill, a perpetually sidelined or infatuated skater. Performed by a scientist from NASA, Morgan basically exists aimlessly in the ecosystem of the picture.

As a political expression, the phrase “Don’t look” turned out to be simplistic. This movie doesn’t try to confuse, it abandons metaphors and shows everything “on the forehead”: here are the obvious threats that the government ignores until the situation reaches a stalemate, here are the modern stars whose personal lives are more important than the last, here are the modern stars of the world, who avoid the words “death” and “danger” TV trying to soften the news, the internet with its memes and likes, and the conspiracy theories that millions are inclined to believe. Adam McKay crosses everything and everyone on both sides of the barricades – including humanity, as his movie shows, which, in principle, does not cause sympathy in the face of the threat of total extinction. At the same time, despite the seriousness of the matter and the attempts by scientists to draw attention to the problem of planetary scale, “Don’t Look Up” doesn’t look like typical apocalyptic stories: it’s done in a completely different way. the content is also in shape, so periodically on the screen there are interruptions from programs about travel and macro shots of insects, and the special effects do not act like a blockbuster.

“Don’t Look Up”

The burning irony here slows down the defense and only comes to the fore towards the end. Politicians, journalists, stars, opponents and supporters of the scientific community who said “Don’t look” yesterday – now the stories of little people are at the forefront. Having stopped running in circles and searching for the truth, they return to the starting point, fold over themselves, grab the hands of those closest to them, and suddenly realize: “We actually had everything.”

Source: People Talk

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