Instead of satirizing a disoriented era, Adam McKay’s film operates as an ironic outcry that doesn’t aim to be funny, but urgent. It doesn’t merely target the symptoms of a collapsing civilization — disinformation, vanity, disbelief in science — but dissects the machinery that sustains this logic even in the face of a foreseeable downfall. The comet, far from being just a cosmic threat, becomes a brutal allegory for real-world crises — environmental, health, political — whose severity, no matter how well-documented, fails to break through collective numbness. By condensing so many dysfunctions into one narrative, McKay crafts something closer to a warning than to fiction.
The film’s deliberate irony doesn’t soften the blow — it sharpens the discomfort. Through exaggeration, it doesn’t distort reality; it merely rises to meet its extravagance. The characters’ hysteria, the media’s sensationalism, the narcissism of power, and the delirium of social networks are not grotesque distortions of today’s world — they’re nearly documentary, albeit stylized. McKay employs a language of mocking urgency, as if aware that whispering is no longer effective. The laughter he provokes is bitter, unsettling, functioning as an indictment of a time when absurdity has been normalized and the ridiculous institutionalized.
This structure reaches its peak when the plot lays bare how public reasoning is hijacked by convenient distractions. The looming collapse, instead of uniting, fractures. Polarization doesn’t stem from uncertainty, but from an active choice to ignore reality in favor of comfort. The political elite, portrayed with near-indifferent cynicism, acts solely to keep the system running, while the public splinters into hollow hashtags and conspiracy theories. McKay offers no solutions — only a cascade of disquieting questions: What happens when truth stops mattering? Who profits from distraction? How far can humanity go in pretending everything is under control?
In this context, Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence don’t play heroes, but survivors of a clarity that has become burdensome. Their vulnerability isn’t dramatic in a conventional sense, but deeply revealing: they are isolated voices in a desert of noise, trying to express the obvious to a world unwilling to listen. The supporting cast, by embracing the grotesque, heightens this contrast: the more reasonable the protagonists try to be, the more deranged those around them appear. It’s a reversed logic that mirrors our own time, where common sense has begun to sound like hysteria.
Though the narrative structure fosters engagement, there are moments when the film seems to rely on overly easy aesthetic choices. The abundance of comic cuts, a score that wavers between irony and tension, and visuals that at times resemble a commercial all dilute little of the film’s impact, but hint that a more focused approach could have intensified its force. There’s also a certain superficiality in the protagonists’ relationship, which could have been further explored — not to humanize the storyline, but to underscore the intimate fractures produced by collective catastrophe.
But expecting balance from a film whose central argument is the breakdown of reason would be naïve. What makes it compelling is precisely its refusal to settle. McKay opts for cacophony over harmony, shouting over restraint, understanding that only excess can compete with the digital era’s relentless noise. His critique isn’t aimed solely at the powerful or the ignorant, but at anyone who embraces the illusion of neutrality in the face of absurdity. It’s a discomforting call, designed to echo long after the credits roll, with a question that lingers unanswered: if we already knew how it ends, why are we still distracted?
Film: Don’t Look Up
Director: Adam McKay
Year: 2021
Genres: Comedy/Drama/Sci-Fi
Rating: 9/10