A couple of years after his dark comedyDon’t Look Upbecamethe most divisive movie of the year, director Adam McKay still has something to say about it. His defensive attitude is based on the fact thatmillions viewed it, yet many probably missed the point about the film tackling climate change.
As reported by Variety, McKay spoke to NME and addressed thecurrent wildfires in Los Angeles, which have ravages large areas of the city and destroyed more than 12,000 homes and other buildings. Somehow,McKay found a way to associate current events with the disaster film:
“In the face of these dramatic catastrophes that keep happening, a movie seems really small and ridiculous. But what was inspiring and energizing was the popular response to that movie, not the critics and the cultural gatekeepers who hated it.
It ended up being number one in something like 85 countries, as diverse as Pakistan, Vietnam, U.S. and Uruguay. That’s extremely rare for a comedy which is usually confined by cultural regional reference points.”
TheNetflix satire starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence was a risky $75 million projectthat divided both viewers and critics alike.Don’t Look Uphad a strong ensemble cast consisting of DiCaprio and Lawrence alongside Ariana Grande, Meryl Streep, Cate Blanchett, Mark Rylance, Tyler Perry, Timothée Chalamet and Kid Cudi, among others. The cast is perhaps the only thing audiences remember about it. Per the film’s synopsis:
Kate Dibiasky, an astronomy grad student, and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy, make an astounding discovery of a comet orbiting within the solar system. The problem - it’s on a direct collision course with Earth. The other problem? No one really seems to care. Turns out warning mankind about a planet-killer the size of Mount Everest is an inconvenient fact to navigate. With the help of Dr. Oglethorpe, Kate and Randall embark on a media tour that takes them from the office of an indifferent President Orlean and her sycophantic son and Chief of Staff, Jason, to the airwaves of The Daily Rip, an upbeat morning show hosted by Brie and Jack. With only six months until the comet makes impact, managing the 24-hour news cycle and gaining the attention of the social media obsessed public before it’s too late proves shockingly comical - what will it take to get the world to just look up?
It was nominated for four Academy Awards, including Best Picture, but it failed to win any. The fact that it was nominated despite the mixed reception is probably related to Netflix’s strong FYC campaign during that year’s award season.
Today,Don’t Look Uphas a 55% critical score on Rotten Tomatoes, and a 78% audience score. And while it’s Netflix’s second most-watched original film of all time,not many people actually remember it.
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McKay found a way toconnectthe reception of his filmto the current situation people in L.A. are going through. It’s a fair but controversial moment to comment on climate change, considering how the fires are still being investigated, and the fact that the disaster is still very active at the moment.
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Sometimes the greatest trick a movie can pull is showing depth where there is none.
But again, the director of films likeViceandThe Big Shortfound a connection between his panned film and the times we’re living in:
“The estimates of how many people saw that movie – Netflix will never say exactly – but it’s somewhere between 400 million and half a billion. Viewers all really connected with the idea of being gaslit. Being lied to by their leaders, lied to by their big news media, and being lied to by industries. It was funny – when I realized that was the common connection point, I was like, ‘of course!’ It’s happening everywhere now with this global neo-liberal economy that we’re all living in. It’s such a cancer and everyone is feeling it.”
