[Quick Summary: After a Ph.D. student sees a comet coming to destroy Earth, she and a professor try to warn the White House...but everyone has their own agendas.]
Satire (n.): The use of irony, sarcasm, ridicule, or the like, in exposing, denouncing, or deriding vice, folly, etc.
A satire about society at large is tricky, lest it become "preachy" or "dull."
I thought this script was rather effective. It focuses on a societal folly, i.e., foolishness of throwing away long term benefits for the short term gain.
This is best seen in the story arc of Dr. Randall, the professor.
He begins as a sincerely worried scientist, but then he falls for the media hype and attention, especially from tv show personality Brie Evantee.
The fun thing about satire is that the writer is not limited to the metaphorical.
The writer can (and did) expose Randall's metaphorical media seduction by showing an actual Brie Evantee seduction:
INT. FANCY HOTEL - DAY
Randall and Brie Evantee walk down a hallway. Brie pulls Randall in for a kiss and they start having sex against the wall in a posh Manhattan hotel.
BRIE EVANTEE: Tell me we're all going to die...
RANDALL: What?
BRIE EVANTEE: tell me we're all going to die... Do it...
RANDALL: We're all going to die...
BRIE EVANTEE: Ohhhh!!!!
WHAT I'VE LEARNED: Big, ridiculous scenes are possible in satire because ridicule is the point.
Don't Look Up (2021)
by Adam McKay
Story by Adam McKay and David Sirota
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