Don’t Look Up begins with a surprisingly understated scene: Astronomy PhD candidate Kate Dibiasky (Jennifer Lawrence) goes about her daily routine. She boils water for tea, spreads jam on a piece of toast and walks into an empty cavernous lab to rev up a gigantic satellite, all while rapping along to Wu-Tang Clan. Kate’s monotonous rhythm is only broken when she discovers a brand new comet. For a brief moment, alone in that cavernous lab, Kate savors this celestial sighting. 

But that’s her first and final calm moment. Soon, she and her professor, Dr. Randall Mindy (Leonardo DiCaprio), realizes that this scientific breakthrough is also a curse: Comet Dibiasky is hurtling toward Earth, with the potential to wipe out the planet. Thus begins a frantic race to warn the human race of the threat, starting with President of the United States Jane Orleans (Meryl Streep). The problem? No one wants to listen. And that makes Kate’s blood boil. 

Unlike Randall, or even Planetary Defense Coordination Office head Teddy Oglethorpe (Rob Morgan), both of whom initially try to compromise with those in charge, Kate isn’t willing to downplay the extinction-level event the planet is facing. She’s a pressure cooker of rage as she huffs through surreal meetings in the Oval Office and interviews with the media, outraged that no one seems to be grasping the weight of the problem, until suddenly, she explodes. The final straw comes during an appearance on The Daily Rip, America’s highest-rated morning show, anchored by Brie Evantee (Cate Blanchett) and Jack Bremmer (Tyler Perry). As Brie and Jack banter back and forth, trying to turn the comet into a joke viewers can ingest and then ignore, Kate suddenly opts out of the game. 

Why Jennifer Lawrence’s Anger In ‘Don’t Look Up’ Matters (Clip 1)

“I’m sorry, are we not being clear?” she screams at the camera. “We’re trying to tell you that the entire planet is about to be destroyed. Maybe the destruction of the entire planet isn’t supposed to be fun. Maybe it’s supposed to be terrifying and unsettling, and you should stay up all night every night crying when we’re all, for sure, 100% going to fucking die!”

It’s the kind of furious, sharply funny outburst that Lawrence excels at. Still, this specific performance hits harder than most in light of her recent absence from the spotlight. In 2018, Lawrence announced that she’d be taking a break from acting, in order to focus her attention on her work with RepresentUs, a nonprofit devoted to increasing political engagement among young people. Don’t Look Up marks her first leading role in three years, and it’s one that feels urgent and personal. In fact, director Adam McKay wrote the character of Kate with her in mind, telling Netflix that she was the only actor he could envision in the role. 

“She just has this beautiful, wonderful hilarious anger,” McKay says. “The character of Kate Dibiasky is driven by that, because she’s the one who won’t play the media game. She’s the one who doesn’t care about couching what she says so it’s pleasant. She’s the one who’s going to dress the way she wants and talks the way she wants. She’s just spitting fire throughout the whole movie, and she’s hilarious while doing it.”

We’ve seen Lawrence deploy this degree of anger before. It’s what drives Katniss Everdeen as she takes up arms against the Capitol in The Hunger Games; it’s what fuels Mystique to go rogue in X-Men: First Class and even why Tiffany Maxwell works so hard to win her dance competition in Silver Linings Playbook. For more than a decade, beginning with her Oscar-nominated performance in Winter’s Bone, Lawrence has given performances anchored in unfiltered, irrepressible rage. Her characters are honest and raw, transgressing traditional expectations of how women should behave. 

As Don’t Look Up reminds us, angry women face swift backlash. With her blunt bangs, severe cat-eyed liner, combat boots and blunt manner, Kate is quickly portrayed as a hysterical fringe nut, the unstable counterpart to Randall’s “hot scientist.” Just take the way Brie responds to Kate’s speech, quipping, “The handsome astronomer can come back anytime, but the yelling lady? Not so much.” While Randall becomes the face of the cause, deployed in PR campaigns for the Orleans administration’s slapdash plan to deal with the comet, Kate is continually sidelined. Her ex-boyfriend trolls her with a tell-all essay about sleeping with the crazy lady from the news, and her face is now everyone’s favorite meme. In fact, the only people wielding any power in this universe are those who, in Brie’s words, “keep the bad news light.” Women like Kate, who don’t deliver the truth with a spoonful of sugar, are portrayed as too chaotic to be taken seriously. 

Kate’s fury feels familiar. Don’t Look Up is being released in the midst of multiple global crises. You don’t have to imagine the world ending, because every glimpse at the news is already telling you it is. When was the last time you quietly went about your routine without wondering if the world was on the brink of disaster? What’s interesting about Lawrence’s performance is how shocking it still feels. Of course Kate should be angry about what’s happening around her. But how many women actually get to express their true emotions? How many are suppressing “taboo” feelings just to get through the day? As always, Lawrence lets loose years worth of bottled up rage in one movie, allowing us all a moment of crude, ugly, but oh-so-cathartic truth. 

Welcome back, JLaw. We missed you.