CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY: Justin Pemberton's necessary documentary of Thomas Piketty's even more necessary book

If ever a tome was needed to help correct the world's ever-growing inequality between the wealthy and the rest, it was Thomas Piketty's CAPITAL IN THE TWENTY-FIRST CENTURY, published in French in 2013 and the following year in an English-language translation.

Though an immediate best-seller internationally, TrustMovies suspects it was one of those books more talked about than actually read by the intelligent masses (yup, I didn't read it either). For those of us who didn't -- and even maybe for those who did -- here comes the movie version (a documentary, 'natch) directed by Justin Pemberton that, after a bit of a shaky start, goes on to become one of those must-see movies that may change the attitude of many lucky enough to view it.

Mr. Pemberton (shown at left), along with M. Piketty (shown below), make

their point via history, economics, statistics and even psychology. Regarding that last, the experiment shown here involving wealth, entitlement and the results of a Monopoly game played without anything resembling a level playing field should open your eyes and leave your mouth agape. That aforementioned point is how hugely the gap in western countries between the very wealthy and the remaining populace continues to widen -- along with how unhealthy this situation clearly is.

Piketty, who, along with Pemberton and Matthew Metcalfe, adapted his own book to the screen, has certainly managed to make his information come across as intelligent, important and more than a little timely.

It is Piketty himself who acts as initial narrator, speaking to us in French (with English subtitles) and popping up from time to time, along with a number of other smart, well-spoken talking heads (including economic analyst Rana Foroohar, above) who, together, make a very good case for why this enormous income disparity is so destructive for so many.

Initially, the documentary took some time to involve me and to lift off. I suspect this is because the film spends a good half hour offering a look at history and telling us things that, if we've also seen other fine docs such as Capitalism and No Gods, No Masters, we'll already know. Add to this, Mr. Pemberton's penchant for filling up the screen with so much of everything as to be distracting (see above and below).

Yet, as Capital in the Twenty-First Century moves along, it gathers such a head of steam that is soon becomes so vitally interesting and packed with more and more with succulent examples and pertinent information that, once finished, you may want to watch it all over again, just to make sure you got the whole thing.

By the time it gets to -- and sticks with -- this twenty-first century,  you'll be absolutely hooked, as Piketty and company explore everything from globalization and its discontents to the country of China (above) -- and why the Chinese (below) are faring better than are we in the west.

This is not simply a slap on the wrist or some dire warning without an accompanying solution. Piketty offers some good ones -- involving taxation and the monitoring of offshore tax havens, among others. Yes, this'll take work. But what that is worthwhile does not?

More to the point, this change demands both the will and the work. But with so many of our current politicians (just as those of the past, above) --- of either stripe -- in hock to the wealthy and the corporate, will and work are, as ever, in short supply. And now we have the current Corona virus to makes it all more difficult. Still, this is a documentary that demands to be seen, discussed and acted upon. We shall see.

From Kino Lorber and running 103 minutes, Capital in the Twenty-First Century was supposed to open theatrically this Friday, April 3 (click here, then click on PLAYDATES, to see the should-have-been theatrical venues). If not available theatrically, surely the film will soon be seen via digital streaming. I'll try to keep you posted with any updates here....

Lauren Greenfield's documentary, GENERATION WEALTH, opens in South Florida

What a bizarre (but still somewhat absorbing) misfire is the new documentary, GENERATION WEALTH, written, directed and produced by Lauren Greenfield, shown below, who back in 2012 gave us another oddball, interesting and not entirely successful doc, The Queen of Versailles. The movie begins as some kind of warning/exploration about how our society is worshiping/pursuing the almighty dollar to the point of no return. Early on, we view an Asian ESL teacher making sure her clients learns the really important words: Louis Vuitton, Lanvin, Hermès and so on.

Then we meet a few of these "pursuers," including a couple of workaholic hedge-fund managers, one of whom eventually goes to prison.

Tossed in with all this is also a school-bus driver who travels to Brazil to get some major plastic surgery, a stage mother and her single-digit daughter intent on finding fame via beauty contests and maybe a reality TV show, and finally Ms Greenfield herself, along with her mother, husband, children and all their stories.

Focus is clearly not Greenfield's strong suit, and before long the viewer may be wondering whether the movie's title ought not have been Generation Workaholic (which would include both Greenfield and her mom), or maybe Generation Addiction (which could include just about everyone covered in this documentary, as each is addicted to something). We even get a small recap of the husband/wife who were the subjects of The Queen of Versailles.

Greenfield's movie is simply all over the place in terms of locale, subject matter, characters, and themes. Had she concentrated more firmly on any one of these, she might have been able to put together a cogent piece of agitprop. Instead the focus keeps shifting and slipping to the point that you may want to grab her script and take a red pencil to about half of it.

The way that Greenfield and her friends and family keep popping into the narrative is almost embarrassing. Had she made a film about this subject only -- her own sense of partial abandonment by her mother and the effect that has had on her life and that of her own family -- she might have had a subject worth tackling. (Her mom, who keeps smiling throughout, clearly would prefer not to think about nor admit to past mistakes.)

And for all Greenfield's would-be concentration on wealth and greed, this is hardly news to anyone who follows cultural/economic trends. Ditto the need for too much body enhancing surgery. And/or the quest for fame. By opting to cover so much by using so many, she weakens her theses and manages to give us both too much and too little at the same time.

Pornography even gets it due via ex-porn star Kacey Jordan, and we view a Bar Mitzvah complete with go-go dancer/strippers but by the end of this overlong documentary, nothing we hear or see registers as either original or even remotely bracing. I would say that Greenfield needed a better editor, but four of them are listed in the credits. I guess it really is the focus here that is most out of whack. I wish Ms Greenfield better luck next time.

An Amazon Studios Release and running 109 minutes, Generation Wealth -- after opening in our major cultural capitals a couple of weeks back -- hits South Florida this coming Friday, August 3. In Miami, it will play the Regal South Beach 18, AMC Aventura, and AMC Sunset Place. In Boca Raton, look for it at the Regal Shadowood.

February's Sunday Corner With Lee Liberman: BIG LITTLE LIES

At an awards ceremony in late 1917, Nicole Kidman attracted some notice for her demonstrative kiss of co-star, Alexander Skarsgård, before she mounted the stage to accept her award. After watching Skarsgård play her sadistic spouse in BIG LITTLE LIES (BLL), this viewer enjoyed seeing Kidman differentiate in public between the abuser who suffocates her with violence and the actor who plays the part. (Skarsgård perfected this M. O. as a particularly memorable vampire in HBO’s True Blood, a much wider-ranging vehicle for his acting chops.)

This ingenious and surprisingly well-crafted, seven-episode series is many things: real estate, lifestyle, and violence porn plus a murder mystery. The NYT reviewer Mike Hale called it a “compendium of cliches about upper-middle-class angst.” But its slickly designed surface (often referenced by the automatic rise of a shade on a picture window exposing a gorgeous rolling expanse of ocean that begins each episode) is package gloss.

BLL carefully constructs the package beauty and then leaps beyond Desperate Housewives angst to seduce with absorbing drama.

 Adapter/screenwriter David E. Kelley (at left), director Jean-Marc Vallée, and cinematographer Yves Bélanger, play a neat trick: They dazzle the audience with drool-worthy excess and then slowly unspool everyday domestic miseries that blot out the beauty of sparkling sun, glinting waves, and glass-walled houses (as below, the home of Laura Dern’s character, Renata).

This creative threesome purposely shows that good writing, direction, and some breathtaking images can reduce the campy trademarks of TV melodrama to wallpaper in the face of a carefully-spun, compelling story. The tension between enviable lives and suffering over the minutiae of daily life seems to be the modus operandi here. (Are these folks so ill-tempered because their sense of entitlement has raised their expectations too high?) At any rate, the viewer is unwittingly drawn into these characters’s lives, ignoring their apartment-size kitchens and their ocean vistas to instead mindfully attend to the troubles they are muddling through.

The book on which the series is based was written by Liane Moriarty, an Australian, whose novel of suburban angst is domiciled in suburban Sydney. It was a NYTimes best seller, as have been other novels of hers. Kelley places Moriarty’s story in ocean-front Monterey, California.

The story involves five women, their six-year-old first graders, their spouses, therapists, teachers, nannies, neighbors, and the police. (Below, the kids -- from l: Ziggy, twins Josh and Max, Amabella, Skye, and Chloe.)

Celeste (Kidman) is a perfect beauty and accomplished lawyer who stays home with her twin boys at handsome husband Perry’s (Skarsgard) needy urgings. They are caught in a cycle of passionate sex that grows increasingly violent (that is, Celeste turns Perry’s violence into sex as a means of pretending their coupling is not abuse but over-heated love-making). Busy-body Madeline (Reese Witherspoon, shown at right, two photos above) is on her second marriage and has two daughters — cherubic little Chloe and teenager, Abigail, from her first marriage; her life is a bit dull but she diverts herself with community projects and friends whom she mother’s. She is best friend’s with Celeste but takes up with newcomer Jane (Shailene Woodley, below) who has just moved to Monterey and lives in a tiny bungalow where she sleeps in the living room, giving her sweet-natured boy, Ziggy, the bedroom. Jane has a secret that she eventually tells Madeline — her son is the result of a rape that actively haunts, leading Jane to keep a gun under her pillow.

Renata (Laura Dern) is a high strung Silicon Valley executive who rants that her professional success makes everyone hate her and rages even more that her little girl, Amabella, is rumored to being bullied by Ziggy at school and yet no one is calling him to account. Bonnie (Zoë Kravitz) is a peace-maker, a ‘fruits and nuts’ yoga instructor married to Madeline’s ex-husband, Nathan. Their daughter, Skye, is friends with Chloe, and Bonnie and Nathan strive to co-parent Nathan’s daughter Abigail from his marriage to Madeline (Bonnie and family below). The relationship between the two families is fraught, to say the least.

The focus rotates among the households dwelling on one or another bit of domestic angst, but it gradually sharpens its scrutiny on the violence between Celeste and Perry, in which a therapist intervenes with more than usual insistence to explicitly warn Celeste of real threat to her well-being from Perry’s escalating rages.

There are two Greek-like choruses to these doings. The chorus of police launch the first episode and recur intermittently right up to the closing image in the series, seeking to solve the murder and remaining suspicious of the characters (through binoculars) even after the case has been resolved. Police activity alternates with a second chorus of friends and neighbors who gossip about the main characters.

Despite the choruses’ intermittent reminders that we have a murder here, the viewer barely pays attention, distracted by the daily interactions among the couples and their children. Then -- in the most satisfying resolution of who, what, and why -- we discover who was bullying Anabella, who is dead and how it happened. Kelley pulls the plot strands together in a few short moments consisting mostly of exchanged looks among the women and one resolute gesture, proving that a who-done-it can resolve itself with a completely satisfying, surprising, yet believable conclusion.

The story here, despite deliberately misleading cues, has not been about a murder at all, but about the day in/day out interactions among the women based on loyalty and affection, mixed with daily irritations and mistrust. Witherspoon’s Madeline, for instance, is bossy and irritating (Elle Woods 20 years later), so much so it was touch and go whether I would survive the first episode, but as we come to know her in different circumstances, a sympathetic and generous woman emerges from the package gloss. Laura Dern’s character, Renata, is even more shrill and unpleasant but she softens surprisingly when she gets new facts. Celeste emerges from semi-self-delusion to take control of her life. The group of women come together not as a group of victims or belligerents, but in a moment of collective understanding and mutual support, validating Hillary Clinton’s adage: It takes a village. 

Perhaps because the resolution was so swift and satisfying, talk of a second series has been marked with ambivalence — this gem can’t be topped; best let it stand on its own. However, screenwriter Kelley sought and received direction from Liane Moriarty in the form of a novella that gave him some guidance about where the characters are headed, and he has already completed a second set of episodes. Kidman, Witherspoon, Dern, Woodley, and Kravitz have reportedly already signed on or are in negotiations. Meryl Streep will join the cast as Perry’s mother.

I admit to having resisted watching this series having been there/done that with the contemporary suburban melodrama thing. But its star-power and award-winnings led me to want to find out what made it land in Time’s top tv shows of 2017. It turns out to have justified itself as a well-conceived enough puzzle, dressed up as suburban melodrama, to intrigue the average soap-ignorer. Nevertheless, I'm not sure I care enough for these people to watch another seven episodes about them, even if I sincerely admire Kelley’s previous work and this impactful and clever piece of plot-making.

Big Little Lies streams on HBO, with Season 2 due to air in 2019.

The above post was written by 

our monthly correspondent, Lee Liberman.