I generally don't review but I had to on this. Saw the trailer and was like, wow great subject! Watched the movie. The first part of the movie dealing with the commodification of america was good. Then it started to veer into a personal journey of Ms Greenfield. While it is interesting how she basically did the same to her kids that her parents did to her, it is not really supposed to be about her. It was supposed to be a comment on America. At 1hr and 45 min I thought it was 30 minutes too long because of that. I was like ok, we've reached the natural conclusion. Then it was self-serving for the rest.
Plot summary
Over the past 25 years, Lauren Greenfield's documentary photography and film projects have explored youth culture, gender, body image, and affluence. Underscoring the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, portraits reveal a focus on cultivating image over substance, where subjects unable to attain actual wealth instead settle for its trappings, no matter their ability to pay for it.
Uploaded by: FREEMAN
November 27, 2023 at 05:24 PM
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Movie Reviews
Could have been so much more
begins on topic, ends on a personal journey
I enjoyed this film. It was very compelling. All profiles are of damaged people with a lot of regret. Including the film maker, who confesses her feelings of abandonment by her own mother as a child, only to repeat the cycle herself...
Generation Lauren Greenfield
Generation Wealth is misnamed. It should be called Generation Lauren Greenfield because it is really her life story. If anything, it could be called Generation OCD. But ultimately it tracks Lauren Greenfield´s obsessions and pulls everything together in a kind of vanity project film billed as being about something other than what it is: a history of Lauren Greenfield.
Don´t get me wrong: I understand the desire to not waste one´s work. It is always tempting when writing a novel to put in every idea one ever had and include every surly character one ever encountered. So why not pull together film footage of everything one ever did into one work? Who knows? You might die tomorrow and therefore will not have the chance to make another film!
All of that said, this collage of an autobiographical film does end up being fairly thought provoking about each of its individual subjects, including the main protagonist, Lauren Greenfield and her family. I do feel that the scenes with the mother were an exhibitionist form of psychotherapy.