Film review: Don’t Look Up 

Sprawling apocalypse comedy starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up
Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio in Don’t Look Up
(Image credit: Niko Tavernise/Netflix)

Having long complained that too few films are engaging with the climate crisis, said Peter Bradshaw in The Guardian, I feel “churlish” for not loving Don’t Look Up, a comedy that does just that. The story follows two astronomers, played by Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, who discover that a Mount Everest-sized comet is zooming towards the planet, and is poised to wipe out human life in six months. The scientists present their findings to the White House, but learn that the “political and media classes can’t or won’t grasp what they’re saying”. There are hints here of Dr. Strangelove and Wag the Dog, but the film is so stuffed with self-aware slapstick that it ends up feeling like a 145-minute Saturday Night Live sketch. Still, if it “helps to do something about climate change, such critical objections are unimportant”.

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE
https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/flexiimages/jacafc5zvs1692883516.jpg

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up