[TOMORROW screens
Friday August 11th at 9:30 pm and Satuday August 12th at
6:45 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]
Review by Bob Ignizio
The scientific consensus regarding climate change being real
and, at least to a large degree, caused by human activity is near unanimous. Some
people still choose to bury their heads in the sand for reasons of politics or
profit, but most of the world accepts the reality of the situation. And it’s a
reality that, when you really think about it, is kind of terrifying.
The international community (minus, sadly, the United
States) is working on solving this problem under the auspices of the Paris Climate
Accord. But is there anything that can be done on a smaller, more local level?
Plenty, as it turns out.
Writer Cyril Dion and actress Melanie Laurent explore some
of those ways in their documentary film TOMORROW.
It’s a film that goes beyond the frightening facts to offer hopeful solutions,
many of which are already working. And it’s not just in more liberal European
countries like France and Denmark. Even here in the United States cities are
doing things like ramping up recycling programs, converting open spaces into
urban gardens, and increasing the use of bikes and public transportation. None
of these things is going to fix the problem of global warming by themselves,
but together they can make a dent.
From a cinematic standpoint, TOMORROW is pretty standard issue documentary fare, and despite the
heavy subject matter, fairly lightweight at that. This is more a personal
journey for the filmmakers as they look for signs there may be hope for their
children, and emotion often supersedes cold hard facts in their presentation. It
also tends to meander, with a few too many musical montages that add little to
the film other than running time, ultimately padding what should have been a
taut 90 minutes out to 2 hours. But considering how grim things seem in the
world at the moment, the film’s hopeful message is certainly welcome. 3 out of
4 stars.
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