I wrote this on Twitter last night:
New Year's Eve and watched Don't Look Up. Brilliant. Don't believe the critics. But do despair for the insanity of the world we live in. Happy New Year.
— Richard Murphy (@RichardJMurphy) December 31, 2021
Most of those commenting seemed to share my opinion, although film critics have generally panned this film.
I won't offer spoilers, because if you have not seen this I recommend that you do, although turn the volume up since if I have one criticism it is that so much of what is said appears to be mumbled.
The best moments? Jennifer Lawrence saying ‘We tried'. I recognised that sentiment. That, and the discussion of having supposedly had it all.
I sincerely hope this opens a few eyes. It deserves to do so.
There were also many good performances and contrary to reviews, a lot of humour.
Available on Netflix, which usually offers me nothing but a sense of despair about there being so many films I will never want to watch, and a sense of bewilderment that some must do so.
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I totally agree, I watched it with my daughter, a 5th year medical student, we both thought it was brilliant, spot on. Humour yes…..but so dark, so scarily real. A perfect parable for our times. Everyone should see this and ignore the likes of Peter Bradshaw who seems to have suspended his critical faculties on this occasion!
Yes – my son and I loved it. It was hilarious…. but with obvious serious parallels for us today.
Absolutely loved it from start to end. So many passive aggressive digs at so many things! Brilliant.
🙂
Agreed
Yeah. I watched it too over Christmas.
Very funny and yet NOT at the same time.
Swap the asteroid for global warming and the joke is on us.
Watched Death to 2021 straight after. Couldn’t tell the difference between the two programs.
Maybe satire is the only way to cut through.
I was waiting to see Charlie Brooker’s name in the credits for Don’t Look Up!
Both excellent
Thank you for all you do, Richard. I’ll certainly watch this film. Re your last para on the dearth of worthwhile watching on Netflix, I don’t often recommend stuff because it’s such a personal thing, but I really enjoyed The Queen’s Gambit mini series recently.
You are not the only person to recommend it…..
Me and my wife watched it on NYE too, and thought it excellent. Just making the US president a Hilary Clintonish clone but with the morals and behaviour or Trump was a masterstroke and the central theme being the brainless denial/exploitation of the obvious is spot on with real life in US politics on the right. Anyway, Happy New Year, Richard.
And to you Ivan
Yes, and pundits praise this film but still express their craving for economic growth.
The concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere continues to increase: from Nov 2020 to Nov 2021 it changed from 413 ppm to 415 ppm (parts per million) https://gml.noaa.gov/ccgg/trends/
[Prior to the Industrial Revolution it was close to 280 ppm for many thousands of years – so it is now almost 50% higher]
1 To make an impact on these numbers, fossil fuels need to be left in the ground *at scale* starting immediately (and it should have been 30 years ago).
2 Stock market values will be irrelevant unless civilisation persists.
3 To prevent methane leaks (preferably ‘for ever’) oil and gas wells need to be carefully sealed – and the seals periodically checked and repaired as necessary).
4 Most – perhaps all – fossil fuel companies now have negative value.
5 To live without abundant cheap energy implies simpler lives – but that might well be perfectly possible:
Prof Julia Steinberger and her colleagues at Leeds write –
“Ecological breakdown looms while the basic material needs of billions remain unmet. Yet, despite population growth, global use of energy by 2050 could be reduced to 1960 levels – and still provide decent living globally & universally. This requires advanced technologies & reductions in demand to sufficiency levels.
But ‘SUFFICIENCY’ IS FAR MORE MATERIALLY GENEROUS THAN MANY OPPONENTS OFTEN ASSUME.
The drastic increases in societies’ energy use seen in recent decades have, beyond a certain point, had no benefit for the well-being of their populations.
Far from cultivating well-being, consumption is often driven by factors such as private profit; intensive and locked-in social practices; employment-related stress and poor mental health; conspicuous- or luxury-consumption; or simply over-consumption in numerous forms.
The technological solutions already exist. What this paper adds is that THE MATERIAL SACRIFICES ARE, IN THEORY, FAR SMALLER THAN MANY POPULAR NARRATIVES IMPLY. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0959378020307512?via%3Dihub”
George Monbiot, the Guardian columnist, posted this on Twitter yesterday:
“Now it’s winter wildfires in the US. How far do things have to go before governments recognise that crucial Earth systems might be reaching their tipping points? If so, we need to respond not with slow and steady carbon reduction plans, but with sudden and drastic action.
Otherwise, it’s like announcing a plan, after Lehman Brothers collapsed in 2008, to bail out the banks by 2050. I’m going to keep saying this until it lodges: If Earth systems are approaching their ‘tipping points’, current plans are far too little, far too late.
It’s really hard to imagine what crossing a major Earth system threshold (a tipping point) would look like. But:
1. It will be orders of magnitude worse than anything we have ever experienced.
2. If one system tips, it could trigger a chain reaction, tipping other systems.
3. There’s a term for such chain reactions: Mass Extinction Events.
4. If a system tips, there’s no going back. This is because of a property of complex systems called hysteresis. More energy is required to push a system back into its prior state than was required to tip it.
I think you are right
Re your first point 5, I’m just reading The Ministry for the Future ( a novel by Kim Stanley Robinson – disppointingly not as good as it might have been, although everyone could benefit from reading the first chapter) in which he mentions the 2000 Watt Society, formed in Switzerland to work towards an equitable worldwide distribution of energy. Turns out it’s a true thing with support from some local governments. Perhaps there are things like this happening all over the world that we mostly know nothing about. How it all gets a purchase, though, is hard to imagine.
I agree. There was a snotty review in the Guardian from someone who was just point scoring, frankly, apparently mistaking a dark comedy (and the choice of genre is actually a subtle one – we couldn’t bear it heavier) for a political tract aimed at MAGA America. Funniest moment for me is when the Cate Blanchett character does her own little autiobiography in bed with Dr Mindy… stinking rich, three Master’s degrees, slept with two former presidents, owns two mines… it’s a long list. Mindy replies… “Wow! Two former presidents!” Stellar performances, particularly from Mark Rylance, who I had never really warmed to in other films (perhaps unfairly. I am a Hilary Mantel nut and probably nobody could do her Thomas Cromwell justice)
I have rewatched Wolf Hall this Christmas and loved it, again
I had to stop watching after 1.5 hours, far far too depressing. The usual tropes made by the usual morons. The film was a metaphore with respect to the inaction we see with respect to the on-going climate disaster. The politicians making the same statements year after year.
Example: energy efficiency and buildings: 13 years ago EU politicos were all talk about it (& its importance) – they even legislated (Energy Efficiency Directive): fast forward and they are still talking with significant action conspicuous by its absense. Related: Romania, EU member – committed to preserve old-growth forests – reality – rampant deforestation (aided by assorted Austrian and German companies – with Ikea doing its bit – according to a recent Deutche Welle programme).
The only difference between the film and the climate disaster is the time scale – the metor was in months, the climate disaster will work its impacts out over years, Colorado now, other places later this year, next year and for the forseeable future. The role of the ultra-rich in this disaster is identical to the film, ditto the corporations; delay real action or find a commercial angle. The role of government executives (e.g. the European Commission, or the UK’s “Civil” service ), is to maintain the status quo & work with the usual suspects (mentioned above), who for the most part know nothing (as per the film).
Unless things change, substantively, and very quickly, humanity (circa 7bn of them) and this version of “civilisation” has no future. This is not a “prediction”, this is a reality.
But we have to try….
I blame neoliberalism
“We have to try” because there is no real choice, nothing else worth doing (and the Morlocks of our time deserve a good beating in this game of survival).
Joe Burlington’s point about how little we need to ‘suffer’ to achieve huge improvements in many environmental targets is well made in some detail in Jason Hickel’s “Less is More: How degrowth will save the planet” https://www.jasonhickel.org/less-is-more.
The first part deals with the violent history that brought us to where we are, and the idiocy of several economic indicators – especially GDP.
The second part deals with the pointlessness of so much ‘production’ – stuff that absorbs peoples lives in the making, lays land to waste for resource extraction and waste disposal, and consumes vast amounts of energy, only to go from producer to warehouse to landfill without ever being used.
Could do with the clarity of MMT, and the final chapter lost me. But the rest is a superb and surprisingly optimistic analysis.
I still have not read it……
I too watched it – and I was going to mention it (honest) but it had me laughing out loud – the bit where the free marketeers turned the impending doom into ‘an opportunity’ is absolutely priceless.
I’ve not seen a more cutting bit of social commentary since ‘Idiocracy’ because it’s so close to the bone – genuine satire usually is. There are lots of ‘ouch’ moments for us as a species.
If you want to see something genuinely moving (but not exploitative in any way) , then watch ‘Evelyn’ – about a family coming to terms with a suicide of a young man by walking and talking in some beautiful parts of the country. It’s strangely life affirming given the subject matter.
BTW I have to disagree about Mark Rylance’s portrayal of Cromwell – it’s his finest performance ever in my view of a principled man sucked into the unprincipled world.
Thx
We watched it too, and yes it was surprisingly funny, and really good satire. It told the truth ! The critics against it strike me as poncy urban types.
I only had one criticism. The politicians were probably a little too sane compared to the out and out nutjobs they were based on. Otherwise, it was stunning. Some of the reviews slated it for being heavy handed. In the world of QAnon the risk is not being heavy handed enough. You cannot do Fox News or Trump or Elon Musk quietly. It had to be brassy and loud. The world really is that crazy. And I think that’s what the critics did not like. They would prefer more sophistication and subtlety in their lives (Peter Bradshaw’s review was particularly awful). It really is important that film makers reflect the world honestly. If it turns out to be corrupt to the point of self-destruction, we need to know.
Don’t Look Up seems to be the one media offering over the holidays which has got people, across all ages, talking. Worth watching (right to the end of the credits).
The Leonardo DiCaprio character seems to be inspired by Michael E Mann, the author of a book I can highly recommend. ‘The New Climate War’ provides essential insights into the playbook being followed by fossil fuel interests who have replaced climate ‘denial’ with deflection, delay, division and doomish. Michael was lead author of the famous ‘hockey stick’ graph paper over twenty years ago…. Usefully, the book looks at possible solutions and emerges cautiously optimistic. http://www.michaelmann.net/
Critics, schmiticks. Who cares? Don’t Look Up was listed at #2 in the American Film Institute’s Top Ten for 2021.
https://screenrant.com/afi-top-10-films-2021-list/
I watched it and understood it’s message, just didn’t think it was that funny. Too much shouting as a substitute for wit!
On reflexion, I think the problem was to do with Hollywood and how it works and a simple misunderstanding of how satire works. What was required were absurd frightening caricatures, what we got were a president and a tech billionaire who were far too believable.
I think of what real satirists would have made with the material and how good it could have been
I highly recommend people read or listen to Timothy Morton. He coined the phrase ‘hyperobjects’ and influenced the filmmakers. A good starter is his podcast series on iplayer.