Never before have I been so mislead by a trailer. Sign Up: Stay on top of the latest breaking film and TV news! It was very compelling. Not everyone has the same standards and aspirations in life ,yet, this documentary has voiced some thoughts and emotions a lot of us were having for quite a while now but were too scared to admit. Greenfield takes it a step further by intriguingly adding herself and her own family as part of the story and suggesting that her careerism is also part of the problem. This is the key takeaway, despite the filmmaker likely not intending it to be: that childcare is extremely important (obviously), and the chain reaction caused by inadequate childcare may very well end up being eventual cause for America's collapse. “What is happiness?” Don Draper once asked in bitterly rhetorical fashion. Despite its focus on materialism, Generation Wealth ends up as a tribute to loved ones, who bring richness to life that money cannot. Appreciating and enjoying finer things in life, as well as the beauty of luxury is understandable, aspiring to do better for yourself is fine, but going into unimaginable extremes can sometimes have dangerous consequences. The result is something of an indulgent, catch-all mess. So self-indulgent. Greenfield's takeaway -- money doesn't buy happiness, family is important, status is illusory -- feels too pat. Don't have an account? A lot of people (not only teenagers) are not aware of how powerful mass media marketing is nowadays. But the filmmaker's kindness also shines through. Whilst it suffers from a lack of focus at times, it's a well-made and thought-provoking insight into our strange new world. Lauren Greenfield's new film about the American Dream of acquiring money, fame, status, and having more, more, more in life to satisfy the me, me, me attitude is brilliant, disturbing, shocking, but the most utterly entertaining and eye-opening. In many ways this film explains - while barely mentioning him - how this country could elect corrupt narcissist as its President. How, after a lifetime spent in the thrall of humanity’s insatiable desire for more, does the photographer/filmmaker who made “The Queen of Versailles” wind up with a retrospective film that ends by suggesting people just get over it and take stock of what really matters? Generation Wealth – her first film since 2012’s The Queen of Versailles – is the culmination of a lifelong obsession with the obsessed. Through Greenfield's subjects, Generation Wealth strives to make the viewer aware of their own hollow pursuits and to right their path toward loving and acceptance of their own self and situation. And, more broadly, an examination of how pathology typically leads to even more pathology -- presented here in the context of how kids raised with incomplete and unsatisfied childhoods end up raising their own kids with the same or similar problems, leading to a snowball effect of pathologies that plague our society in innumerable ways. I watched this doc to make myself feel better about not having money. Questions like: “How do we commodify our own value”? Generational wealth splattered with self promotion of her other movies/ writings. Generation Wealth is an unsatisfyingly superficial crash course in that enduring idea, a kind of omnibus of the photographer's fixations coalesced into one top-heavy, meandering production. It's an idiosyncratic documentary about the pursuit of money as an inadequate sticking plaster over the pervading wounds of scarcity and lack we feel in a secular, fame obsessed society. The parallels that Greenfield traces between them are hazy at best, though Jordan’s difficulties with pregnancy feed into the film’s greater concern for children who are born into the all-consuming frenzy for money. Like in Greenfield's other works, her broken subjects are reaching beyond themselves to find happiness, acceptance, love, and personal satisfaction through appearance, lifestyle and material things. Unfortunately, 50% of the time she can't seem to resist turning the camera on herself and her uninteresting family to talk about subjects (ie HERSELF!) I eventually just kept my finger on the FF button and would simply skip over the parts where the filmmaker inexplicably and unnecessarily started talking about herself. Generation Wealth is an unsatisfyingly superficial crash course in that enduring idea, a kind of omnibus of the photographer's fixations coalesced into one top-heavy, meandering production. I have noticed some of the bad reviews about this documentary wandering...not true! after performing a scene with more than 50 different men. The story of a woman who unconsciously ended up exactly like her own mother... A brilliant window into the dark heart of our culture. Sign up for our Email Newsletters here. All rights reserved. and to receive email from Rotten Tomatoes and Fandango. Get The Latest IndieWire Alerts And Newsletters Delivered Directly To Your Inbox. I can't wait to get my book copy. Everyone believes they can be the exception to the rule, but the results seem to indicate otherwise. It describes a country where beauty, sex, fame, and status have all become commodities on sale to the highest bidder It's a modern day race and mantra. “Generation Wealth” will be released in theaters on Friday, July 20. The degree of difficulty here is off the charts, and the wildly uneven results only make the achievement of Kirsten Johnson's Cameraperson all the more impressive. Metacritic Reviews. Turn the camera on and let's talk about ME!" I've created this account just so I could review this movie. Maybe society is just so afflicted with its wealth sickness that looking at all the symptoms of the illness makes it impossible to craft a compelling diagnosis of how the infection started and spread. I enjoyed this film. A tablespoon of her family biography and an inner look at some family pathology. In Greenfield’s latest documentary, the director takes stock of her own journey, reflecting on her addiction to work (and the various desires that it implies) through the lens of her most extreme subjects. Greenfield eloquently captures the decaying of the American Dream as a form of corrupt capitalism has eaten away at American idealism and replaced it with a form extreme narcistic materialism. begins on topic, ends on a personal journey, Probably the worst six dollars my girlfriend ever spent, Thought provoking, authentic, unnerving film. Ever since she was a teenager inspired by the privileged toxicity of Bret Easton Ellis’ “Less Than Zero,” Greenfield has been fascinated by many of the questions that most of us would rather ignore. That memorable line came in the middle of a drama that spent more than 70 hours of television unpacking a question to which its protagonist only pretended to know the answer, as “Mad Men” exhaustively pressed through the latter half of the 20th century and peered behind the curtains of capitalism in search of a less elusive solution. Aside from wealth, Greenfield explores her own obsession with work and personal achievement and the effect that it has had on her charming family. It is a remarkable cinematic journey as she revisits those she has photographed for previous projects which have often focused on excessive wealth. Greenfield looks at the wealthy LA teens of the 90s including a young Kim Kardashian and talks to the extraordinary disgraced hedge fund manager Florian Homm, a former porn star and most heartbreakingly of all a neglectful mother obsessed with plastic surgery. This would've and could've been an interesting documentary...if the filmmaker had actually stuck to the subject! Lauren Greenfield's decades of chronicling gets showcased in this expose - and as someone raised in LA during these decades, it speaks the truth. Get the freshest reviews, news, and more delivered right to your inbox! What happens when those who live fast don't die young. It’s hard to understand how anyone so capable of diagnosing this problem can also believe themselves capable of solving it — so hard, in fact, that the last 20 minutes of “Generation Wealth” might compel you to reconsider the value of the 80 minutes before them. Judging by their experiences, that’s a lesson that everybody has to learn the hard way. People from all walks of life are willing to do anything, everything, whatever it takes, to get there , to be there, to make it ..no matter the price. Including politicians. Celebrated photo journalist Lauren Greenfield brings her unique eye to bear on over twenty years of excess. What a great doc.