Honestly, Vanessa

I finally watched Don’t Look Up on Netflix, and honestly, I really enjoyed it. It felt real. Not dramatic in a fictional way, but dramatic in the way real life has quietly become.

The film follows two astronomers who discover a planet killing comet heading towards Earth, only to realize that getting people to care is harder than the science itself.

That premise alone says everything. The danger isn’t just the comet. The danger is distraction, ego, political theatrics, media cycles, and the way truth gets filtered through entertainment before it’s allowed to be taken seriously.

Although this film is a satire and comedy, there’s a lot of truth to it.

What stood out to me the most is how easily society can be manipulated when messaging is packaged the right way. The scientists were emotional, awkward, and urgent, which made them look unstable in contrast to the polished smiles of politicians and talk show hosts.

The government in the film wasn’t incompetent in a cartoonish way; it was strategic in a familiar way. It was all about optics, timing, polling numbers, re-election, and maintaining power.

The theatrics felt more important than the actual survival of the planet, and that felt disturbingly believable.

There’s a scene where serious information is delivered on a morning show set that looks like it was designed for celebrity gossip, and it perfectly captures the disconnect between content and tone.

Everything has to be digestible. Everything has to be entertaining. Even extinction has to be rebranded.

I also appreciated how the film didn’t try to make the scientists flawless heroes. They were human. They got angry. They got swept up in attention. They made questionable choices.

That detail mattered because it showed how systems shape behavior. When the structure around you rewards popularity over truth, even well-intentioned people can get distorted by it.

The corporate tech angle in the movie felt just as sharp. The billionaire character wasn’t portrayed as evil in a dramatic villain way. He was portrayed as visionary, data-driven, emotionally detached, and convinced that profit and innovation would naturally solve everything.

That kind of thinking is not rare. The idea that a catastrophic threat could be reframed as a financial opportunity felt like commentary, not exaggeration.

What I liked most is that the film didn’t try to comfort the audience. It didn’t wrap everything in hope or pretend that awareness automatically leads to change.

It showed denial, distraction, tribalism, and blind loyalty in a way that mirrors how public discourse works now. People don’t just disagree anymore. They attach identity to narratives.

The satire works because it pushes just far enough to make you laugh and then realize you are laughing at something that is already happening in real life.

It also made me think about how often truth depends on who is delivering it rather than what is being said. A calm lie is often received better than a frantic truth.

A confident politician can override a data backed scientist if the audience prefers comfort over discomfort. That dynamic was portrayed so clearly that it almost felt like a documentary disguised as fiction.