'Death to 2020' Review

Last night, I sat down to watch Death to 2020 on Netflix. As I saw the famous faces lined up in the cast, it occurred to me that the wealthy and privileged starring in a tongue-and-cheek documentary about a year that actually devastated millions of people across the globe felt… well, a bit fucked up to be honest. But the film was produced by Black Mirror’s Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones, so surely it would be somewhat intelligent and have at least some depth.

 

I was very wrong.

 

Like much of Charlie Brooker’s recent work (see my piece on Black Mirror here) this felt over-ambitious, overly self-satisfied, and a lot less smart than it thinks it is. Despite its star-studded cast and “esteemed” writers, Death to 2020 was bad. And not so bad that it was good. It was just bad.

 

At first, there were a few lines that made me chuckle, such as when Trump is referred to as an ‘experimental pig-man’. But I soon learned that these whacky one-liners were basically all this movie had to offer in terms of comedy, and they were few and far between. We see various characters interviewed throughout the mockumentary, and the only ones that made any sort of impression on me were an American conservative politician played by Lisa Kudrow, and the ‘Average UK Citizen’ played by Diane Morgan (best known for her role as Philomena Cunk). I wasn’t surprised when I looked up this movie and read that a lot of the actors contributed heavily to what their characters spoke about, because there was a significant difference in quality from actor to actor. 

The mockumentary relies on glaringly obvious jokes and heavy-handed swearing and shock-humour, i.e in many cases, especially with the behavioural therapist character played by Leslie Jones, the word ‘fuck’ is the joke.

 

There were one or two other lines that did get a laugh out of me, like when Cristin Miliota’s soccer mom character is referred to as being on the ‘cusp of Karenhood,’ or when Tom Hanks testing positive is called a ‘desperate bid for attention’ from the virus. But mostly, I just cringed, particularly with the character of Duke Goolies who is a well-acted but obnoxious character – and not obnoxious in the way they intended. The scene where the Queen makes her speech via YouTube was also very, very cringe.

 

Despite the fact that this mockumentary serves as a humorous recap of the year’s events, I was shocked that they even touched the George Floyd story. This should NOT have been included. Read the room! It was absolutely the wrong way to go. Samuel Jackson and Leslie Jones’ characters take the lead when discussing BLM, and the tone suddenly, jarringly switches from comedic to serious. This doesn’t take away from the fact that this is INCREDIBLY disrespectful considering the context. Not the time or the place. 

 

And although Cristin Milioti does a really good job with her character, particularly the voice and inflections, the jokes about her being a racist white mom caught on video terrorizing black men is just incredibly offensive, and the constant switch between serious and comedic when broaching this topic just doesn’t work at all. There’s a joke where a Google Nest takes on the personality of Malcolm X while taking commands and… at that point I think I mentally checked out.

 

To be honest, Diane Morgan is the saving grace of this mockumentary. I would happily watch an edited version where Average UK Citizen is the only character included. When she talked about developing a multiple personality disorder and then struggling to social distance from herself, I actually belly laughed. But her excellent delivery is tainted by the surrounding jokes such as a scientist ‘flossing’, and a character mentioning bingeing Netflix – Haha mentioning Netflix even though this is produced by Netflix haha so meta and funny.

 

This movie is terrible. Don’t watch it. Or do, and just skip to Diane Morgan’s scenes. Charlie Brooker should be ashamed.