Film review: Don’t Look Up
Sprawling apocalypse comedy starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence

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”.
This “rollicking political satire” runs out of steam eventually, said Kevin Maher in The Times, but its charismatic (and star-studded) cast more than make up for it. DiCaprio provides a “sympathetic study in febrile insecurity” as a nervy professor, while Lawrence’s PhD student is “fabulously caustic”. Along the way, Mark Rylance pops up as “an eerie tech billionaire”; Timothée Chalamet has a turn as a stoner dropout; and Cate Blanchett is “indecently” good as a news anchor determined to “keep it light, keep it fun” as the apocalypse looms. Engaging and funny as it is, said Tori Brazier in Metro, given the 21 months we’ve just had, I found it a bit much, especially at Christmas: “it’s almost a little too close to home to properly enjoy”. Plus the film, like so many, is just “too long for its own good” – “lopping off half an hour” would have tightened it up nicely.
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

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.
-
October 13 editorial cartoons
Cartoons Monday's political cartoons include Donald Trump's consolation prize, government workers during shutdown, and more
-
Can Gaza momentum help end the war in Ukraine?
Today's Big Question Zelenskyy’s request for long-range Tomahawk missiles hints at ‘warming relations’ between Ukraine and US
-
The Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners being released
The Explainer Triumphant Donald Trump addresses the Israeli parliament as families on both sides of the Gaza war reunite with their loved ones
-
The delightful, smutty world of Jilly Cooper
In the Spotlight Millions mourn the ‘Mrs Kipling of sex’
-
Lee Miller at the Tate: a ‘sexy yet devastating’ show
The Week Recommends The ‘revelatory’ exhibition tells the photographer’s story ‘through her own impeccable eye’
-
6 eye-catching rounded homes
Feature Featuring a central spiral staircase in Michigan and a Balinese-style estate with ocean views in Hawaii
-
A House of Dynamite: a ‘nail-biting’ nuclear-strike thriller
The Week Recommends ‘Virtuoso talent’ Kathryn Bigelow directs a ‘fast-paced’ and ‘tense’ ‘symphony of dread’
-
The Finest Hotel in Kabul: a ‘haunting’ history of modern Afghanistan
The Week Recommends Lyse Doucet’s sensitively written work traces over 50 years of Kabul’s ‘Inter-Con’ hotel
-
The Smashing Machine: Dwayne Johnson is ‘magnetic’ in gritty biopic
The Week Recommends The wrestler-turned-Hollywood-actor takes on the role of troubled UFC champion Mark Kerr
-
Shadow Ticket: Thomas Pynchon’s first novel in over a decade
The Week Recommends Zany whodunnit about a private eye in 1930s Milwaukee could be the 88-year-old author’s ‘last hurrah’
-
Southern barbecue: This year’s top three
Feature A weekend-only restaurant, a 90-year-old pitmaster, and more