The Trailer For Leonardo DiCaprio And Jennifer Lawrence’s Chaotic Netflix Film Has Landed

Don’t Look Up, written and directed by Vice‘s Adam McKay, has an old, maybe even ancient premise: what if you knew the world was ending and nobody believed you?

After all, this is the story of Chicken Little; of skies falling; of the calls of approaching wolves going unheeded. We have been obsessed for hundreds of years with the dislocating nature of belief, the way that we can sometimes hold opinions that, in the face of the rest of the world, seem bizarre or unfounded.

But there is a particularly contemporaneous angle to Don’t Look Up. Now more than ever, misinformation abounds, spread by canny politicians and the machine of the internet. More than ever, many of us feel like we are drowning in disbelief, whether it be the lies spread by COVID-19 deniers, or the un-scientific premises of the TERF crowd.

So yes, the film, which stars Leonardo DiCaprio and Jennifer Lawrence, amongst so many others (Timothée Chalamet, Ariana Grande, Meryl Streep, Jonah Hill, etc, etc,), is both timely and timeless. In it, DiCaprio’s scientist must desperately try to convince the powers that be that an asteroid is moments away from striking the Earth, decimating all living beings. But it will not be easy — DiCaprio must submit himself to a loping, rusted being that never, ever moves fast, butting heads with politicians and non-believers in the process.

Oh, and did I mention that the thing is a comedy? Of course, given that this is McKay, it’s a particularly vicious and angry comedy — think Vice but more desperate — filled with mental breakdowns, panic attacks, and lots of shots of DiCaprio trying to regulate his breathing.

Watch the trailer in full right here, and then prepare yourself for when this thing drops this December 24: