Don't Look Up - Again

Nisha Taylor’s feature length documentary Don’t Look Up - Again explores the lead up to the 2023 Youth Spring Climate Justice Act. This represents a successful but delayed recognition of youth groups who, fearing the state of their future with the threat of global warming, demanded change. The documentary and its title refer to Adam McKay’s 2021 black comedy film Don’t Look Up, which presents a world very similar to ours. It is fated to end with the impact of a comet and while the protagonists endeavour to warn people of such a sincere threat, they are met with ignorance and dismissal. Such concepts imitate the real world where many, from youth groups to scientific experts, desperately try to communicate the threat of global warming with little success or recognition. The film’s satirical imitation of actual events in the world sparked a level of activism in people to improve the state of the planet, and this documentary explores one of the impressive effects the film had.

The informative aspect of Taylor’s documentary shows passion and dedication - it offers a multitude of interviews from individuals who responded publicly to Don‘t Look Up and were thus involved in the social media uproar that followed. The documentary presents a chronological expansion - beginning with a central subject of McKay’s film and its critical response, to the response of real media personnel. The insight into this audience subgroup was incredibly engaging. As people both inspired by the film and belonging to a profession which offers a level of visibility, this specific audience were able to draw the message of Don’t Look Up from a satirical context into the real world. The narrative sequence offering their tales of rebellion against their superiors makes for incredible storytelling.

Though this instance of the storytelling is effective, it is a majoritively abandoned aspect in the body of the documentary - made up by a number of interview clips. A steady progression remains in the story through the phases, identifiable by their introductions of people affected by the film and thus portraying the vastness of the audience. What begins as an enclosed conversation of McKay’s film grows to individual stories of people in the media and in climate change research who were impacted, inspiring youth groups and real world change. The ripple effect is large, impressive, and the documentary effectively conveys the extent of the growing conversation on climate change, but viewers may feel that the frequent, consecutive clips of news anchors is repetitive. It arguably restricts the flow of the documentary, affecting the viewing experience.

While this could have been improved by a clearer or stronger line of narrative from its maker, the informative aspect remains impressive and well-researched. It is an intricate accumulation of people affected by the message of Don’t Look Up, stories of them risking their careers and reputation to affirm it and an exploration into its impact on our world. All the while, it is proving the power of film and solidarity, which means that simply by existing, Don’t Look Up Again it is an aid to an incredibly important instruction - save our world.