An
Inconvenient Sequel: Truth to Power ** ½ / *****
Directed
by:
Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk.
Written
by: Al
Gore.
In retrospect, I think it’s fair
to say two things about An Inconvenient Truth – the first is that it was a very
important documentary, that brought awareness of global warming to a larger
audience, and the second is that the success the film had (it won an Oscar for
Best Documentary, and remains to this day the 11th highest grossing
doc of all time – and higher when you take out music docs) has spawned a decade’s
worth of copycats, which are basically dull. Because that film was so
successful, many others have followed in its wake – and that has resulted in
many “issue” documentaries, which are essentially dull lectures on a subject –
and contain a website address in the end credits urging you to “Get Involved”.
These docs often do tell important stories, on important subjects – but man, do
I ever wish the filmmakers behind them would be more inventive in how they
approach their subjects. A documentary doesn’t need to be a dull slideshow.
All of this brings us to the
decade later sequel to the original film. The original director Davis Guggenheim
isn’t back and instead, the film was directed by Bonni Cohen & Jon Shenk –
who made last year’s very powerful Netflix documentary Audrie & Daisy,
about the sexual assault of two teenage girls, and the long lasting after
effects. That film gave into to the kind of “issue” doc tactics occasionally,
but overall, it delivered an important personal story, as well as a larger one
on rape culture in general that made up for it. With this film we can at least
be grateful that we don’t just get a repeat of the original film – there have
been many global warming docs in the past decade, some good, some not so good –
that it really isn’t necessary for a repeat. What we get instead is basically a
portrait of Al Gore as he travels around the world talking to people about
global warming, and trying to convince people, with mixed results, to get involved.
The subtitle to the movie – Truth
to Power – is obviously directed at President Trump – who doesn’t really think
global warming is important, and withdrew America from the Paris Accord – which
this movie spends much of its final half hour showing how it was negotiated (at
least Gore’s involvement). Trump is the specter that hangs over the whole film –
but the filmmakers mainly keep him in the background – a voice on a TV set
playing in behind Gore as he does something more important.
The film is kind of interesting,
and of course, you cannot help but admire Gore, who is now nearing 70, and has
never slowed down his work on something he is very passionate about – and really
is the most important issue of our time, because if we destroy the planet,
nothing else really matters. I’m just not entirely sold that this needed to be
a movie. We don’t really learn anything more about global warming than we did
before, and we don’t really know any more about Al Gore than we did before. If
nothing else, I guess the film is important to remind everyone that this huge
issue is still an issue, still a problem, and that we haven’t really done
anything to solve it – and Al Gore is that annoying guy who won’t leave you
alone on the subject, but you still have to admit he’s right. No, I don’t think
really think we needed this movie – but until we actually do something about
global warming, we do Al Gore to keep trying to do something about it.
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