Stream of the Day
Death to 2020 – streaming on Netflix
From the global pandemic to a near Third World War, 2020 was a crazy year. The madness is neatly captured in Netflix’s 70-minute ‘mockumentary’.
2020: A year so topsy-turvy, even the creators of Black Mirror couldn’t make it up, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have a little something to add. Black Mirror’s Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones have assembled a comedy special called Death to 2020, which tells the story of the dreadful year that was — and perhaps still is? The ‘mockumentary’ captures the madness of the year through a stellar cast posing as pundits, queens and other assorted commentators.
It’s a retelling of the year with a little extra added in and from various points-of-view, ranging from ordinary people to the Queen of England, following a reality TV interview format.
While critics have generally dismissed the mockumentary as “unimaginative” and worse, the public has taken to it in a big way, underlining the extent to which the public is still trying to process the events of 2020 even if the media has moved on. While some roles could have used a recasting, the performances of the likes of Hugh Grant as a self-important historian and Lisa Kudrow as the classic arch-conservative mouthpiece can be savoured by their fans.
The cast of Death to 2020 includes:
- Samuel L. Jackson as Dash Bracket
- Hugh Grant as Tennyson Foss
- Lisa Kudrow as Jeanetta Grace Susan
- Kumail Nanjiani as Bark Multiverse
- Tracey Ullman as The Queen
- Samson Kayo as Pyrex Flask
- Leslie Jones as Dr. Maggie Gravel
- Diane Morgan as Gemma Nerrick
- Cristin Milioti as Kathy Flowers
- Joe Keery as Duke Goolies
- Laurence Fishburne as Narrator (voice)
- Angelo Irving as Boris Johnson
- Lily Sullivan as Amy
The movie is available to stream now Netflix.
