This smart cage-rattling film on Environmental justice opens with a narration by Juno’s Ellen Page as the leader of an anarchist faction that stages attacks on major corporations, or as she protests over visual shots of ducks drowning in crude oil – It’s easy when it’s not your home….15 million barrels of crude are dumped into the Atlantic….” and the billionaires live in their gated communities and have no interest in the very world that they harm. Page then carries on with threats “We are ‘the East’ – we will counter attack three corporations over the next three months worldwide.”
As an audience we’re instantly intrigued. Are they terrorists or just pranksters? Enter Sarah (Brit Marling) an FBI female operative sent in by a powerful intelligence firm run by Sharon (Patricia Clarkson). When Sarah infiltrates “the East” she finds her mission compromised when she falls for the leader, a soft-spoken man resembling Jesus named Benji (Alexander Skarsgard) though his straight jacket dinner party and other antics give him a twist of Charles Manson. And so like our heroine Sarah, we learn to trust (or not) as we/she goes along.
As she finds love for this winsome group and their seemingly decent motives, Sarah has to reassess her priorities while playing both sides of the fence. These kids are educated, affluent, one even a medical student, so the film often feels Blair Witch meets some form of Ivy League Helter Skelter with environmental do-good purpose. But can we take other lives to save lives? The questions circle as the CEO of McCabe-Grey pharmaceuticals is targeted, and his beautiful wife (Julia Ormond) finds herself getting “a taste of her husband’s medicine.” The most important film of the year, since it doesn’t rely on aliens or zombies because as it turns out, we just might be the monsters. ♔ ♕ ♚ ♛