What would you do if you were told that the world was ending in two days?
If you’re in a different city, would you book the first flight back home, just so you can return to your family for one last time?
Or would you perhaps prefer to stay by yourself? With your pet and a pizza (or two) to keep you company?
Or would you be so caught up in trying to figure out the ideal way to spend these last few hours, that by the time you have finally made your decision, you are only seconds away from your death?
Adam McKay’s 2021 film Don’t Look Up, tries to be a lot of things – science fiction, dark comedy, political satire – and indeed it does manage to tick all those boxes, but somewhere down the line, it leaves viewers with that one age-old, oft-romanticised question:
What would you do if the world was coming to an end?
It’s easy to see why this question appeals to the public imagination – it opens up the doors for speculation and offers infinite possibilities, all while remaining safely cushioned by the hope that such an occurrence is, realistically, never going to happen. In Don’t Look Up, Adam McKay swiftly pulls out this safety net from under us.
For those who have not yet watched it, here is a spoiler-free summary of the film:
Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) is a PhD candidate in astronomy, who discovers a large comet hurtling towards the earth. She and her mentor – Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio) – try to alert the world about this “extinction level event”.
And just like you would expect, nobody takes them seriously (of course).
While the news channels use Kate and Dr. Mindy to rake up their views, political parties use the comet to garner support for themselves; until it comes down to the final stalemate with the world divided into two distinct teams – Just Look Up vs. Don’t Look Up.
The film is loud, chaotic and confusing. Which is exactly what the premise demands.
You can hardly expect a film about the world ending to be quiet and gentle, with soothing instrumentals playing in the background. The sound in Don’t Look Up is what makes it so jarring and contributes to the general sense of panicky disorder that prevails throughout. Kate has repeated meltdowns, Dr. Mindy pops Xanax like its candy, everyone talks over each other and people corner you in pubs to coerce top secret federal information out of you. In many ways, it is reminiscent of that meme which makes rounds in social media every now and then – a goose with a knife in its beak, and text that reads, ‘Peace was never an option’.
(No, not even when the world is ending.)
knowyourmeme.com
If Prince Hamlet was allowed a role in the film, one can imagine what he would have to say about the conflict:
To look up or not to look up, that is the question.
On the surface, it seems as if McKay provides two distinct choices to answer that question. Except that neither of those are correct. The answer is in fact a secret third option, one that is quietly slipped into the film moments before the comet hits, when sitting at the dinner table, surrounded by his friends and family, Dr. Mindy says,
“Thing of it is, we really did have everything, didn’t we? I mean, when you think about it?”
That is the last dialogue the earth is allowed before it explodes into oblivion.
An epiphany about life, ironically setting in just moments before death.
McKay takes his own time to set up the film’s fundamental question: What would we do if the world was coming to an end?
And in that one sentence, he leaves us with his answer.
It was never a matter of looking up or down. It was always about looking around.
Clockwise from left: Jonah Hill, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jennifer Lawrence and Meryl Streep in a still from the film Netflix
In many ways, ‘up’ in the film, is symbolic of the lure of a distant, attractive future. Everything goes wrong because the characters all seem to be looking ‘up’, chasing this future – this possibility of being something their mundane realities don’t allow them to be. The film proves it time and again. But like most revelations, it becomes evident only in retrospect.
Let us take a quick look at some of these instances (and this is where you realise that the initial spoiler-free summary was quite pointless):
- The problems begin when Kate Dibiasky quite literally looks up and identifies the comet.
- Crucial time to avert the crisis is lost when President Orlean (Meryl Streep) fails to keep her first appointment with Kate and Dr. Mindy because she is busy looking ahead and trying to deal with some controversy centred around her Supreme Court nominee.
- The comet could have been blown off course by space shuttles and satellites but those were launched and then called back when it came to light that the comet would be carrying highly valuable minerals which could be extracted with technology and brought back to earth for the benefit of all humankind.
Sounds ridiculous, doesn’t it?
Calling off an entire mission based on assumptions that have no previous track record of success?
And yet, this series of instances continue, all of them pinned on the hopes of an imaginary future represented by the comet. I could keep listing those moments, but that would hardly be fair to the film or to you, so I will rest my case with one final example.
(L to R): Jennifer Lawrence, Leonardo DiCaprio and Timothée Chalamet in a still from the movie Netflix
After he appears on a popular news show, Dr. Mindy is lured into the limelight of media attention. He has an affair with a hotshot news presenter (Cate Blanchett) and loses sight of his family. Once the rose-tinted glasses fall off, when he tries to return to his family, his wife refuses, eventually relenting only on that last day, when he appears at the door with Kate and Yule (Timothée Chalamet) in tow.
Standing in front of his wife with a bouquet of roses in hand, when he asks if they could have a family dinner and she allows them in, I was reminded of a few lines from JP Saxe and Julia Michaels’ popular song,
“The sky'd be falling and I'd hold you tight,
And there wouldn't be a reason why
We would even have to say goodbye
If the world was ending
You'd come over, right?”
And maybe that is exactly what we’ll do.
If the world was ending, maybe we’d all seek out a loved one.
Set aside our differences and talk about the most mundane things. Maybe even share a laugh over anecdotes from long ago. Keep each other company alongside the quiet comfort of familiar, everyday banter.
Maybe that day, we’ll finally find the time to look around.
And realise that Dr. Mindy was right all along.
We really did have everything.
We just had to stop looking up.