Don't Look Up

Believe it or not, my youngest child is now 18 years old, and has become a film critic in her own right.  For weeks she has been asking me whether I've watched Don't Look Up yet, because she felt that it was applicable to something that we were discussing during one of walks at Pine Island.  When I finally did watch the movie, my first question of her was "did you watch the end of the movie?"  You see, even though she grew up in a household where the entire movie is viewed, she's surrounded by people who get up as soon as the credits start rolling, and exit the theater, as though words on the screen might contain some horrible disease.  And even though she grew up in a household where the same respect to the filmmakers is shown at home, she lives in the time of Netflix, where you can barely glimpse the credits without another video starting; a protocol implemented to keep your attention and prolong the binge.  So I was suspicious that we had seen a different movie, and I was correct.  She saw a mess of a movie with a contemplative conclusion.  I saw a mess of a movie with a contemplative aside, followed by a stupid mess of an ending.  The question that this raises is, does an offensive amalgamation of B-movie clichés pretending to be a dark satire find redemption through an ending that feels honest?  Perhaps, but I'll never know, because I kept watching.  By now many of you will be familiar with my position on the importance of endings; they can ruin otherwise good films, i.e The Last Samurai, they can salvage otherwise mediocre films, i.e. The Usual Suspects, and they can be the capstone to great films, i.e No Country For Old Men.  I will give my daughter the benefit of the doubt (since she does have excellent taste in film - and she is my daughter), and conclude that Don't Look Up falls into The Usual Suspects category, as long as you stop it once the credits start rolling.