Released just in time to give 2021 the send-off it deserved, Netflix gave us Don’t Look Up. A movie that was written before the Covid pandemic about the reaction of the United States to climate change but feels very relevant to the current Covid-ridden world.

Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) is an astronomy Ph.D. candidate who discovered a large comet hurtling through space toward Earth. Her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), calculates that it will hit Earth in about six months, causing a planet-wide extinction event. They, along with Dr. Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan) from NASA, take the information to the president of the United States. President Jeanie Orlean (Meryl Streep) ignores the warning, choosing to focus on the scandal involving her current Supreme Court nominee instead. Kate, Dr. Mindy, and Dr. Oglethorpe try to warn the country of the impending doom themselves, only to be met with the same apathy they received from government officials. People don’t take the threat seriously until it is too late.

Don’t Look Up hit a little too close to home for me. While I don’t have any Covid-deniers or anti-maskers/anti-vaxxers in my family, there are a few of those in my workplace. And while this movie wasn’t addressing the response to the pandemic itself, it is a fitting metaphor. To be honest, it fits any situation where something awful is happening and the seemingly-majority (who are usually a vocal minority) scream about how it’s not true. (cough gun control conversations after mass shootings in the United States cough) Unfortunately, I’m pretty sure the message of “Take action now before it’s too late and we all die” isn’t going to get through the to necessary people. They will all claim it as some sort of liberal agenda and write it off altogether.

Maybe it’s because I am on the side of “maybe we should save the world?” but I found the movie sadly entertaining. Jonah Hill as President Orlean’s son and Chief of Staff, Jason, was hysterical but also scary. He wrote in a post on his Instagram, “creating this guy was the grossest blast I’ve ever had. I thought, what if Fyre Festival was a person and that person had power in the White House.” I would say that sums his character up well. As terrible as he was as a person, I think he may have been my favorite character in the movie.

While I would love for everyone to watch Don’t Look Up. the people that need to watch it aren’t going to. Nevertheless, everyone else should watch it. Maybe we can figure out how to save our world through the inevitable destruction of theirs. Or maybe, at the very least, we can figure out why a Lieutenant General would charge someone for free snacks.