No Impact Man

Seen at: Lyric Cinema Cafe, at 4:45 p.m. on Nov. 25

About ten minutes into this documentary about a guy in New York who tries to lower his carbon footprint to zero, one begins to have all sorts of cynical thoughts about his project. Is he just a poseur.

The documentary is skillful in this regard, because it is actually wanting you to feel this, so that it can address it, and use the tension of the genuineness of his project to form the narrative structure underneath. In this regard, it was well done. My interest was sustained throughout.

Much of the narrative tension centers around the protagonist's relationship with his wife, and her involvement and enthusiasm for what they have been doing. The validity of the protagonist's crazy scheme then get mixed up in the wife's desire to have a baby. In that end, the documentary itself becomes a framing story for the issue of whether or not the husband is willing to accede to the wife's desire for a child. This part of the story becomes an interesting take on the standard Postmodern boy-man theme. Nice touch.

Verdict: worth watching, even if you think as I do that the "carbon footprint" thing is a globalist scam.