No Impact, Man

When you hear that the documentary is called No Impact Man, you are likely to jump to the idea that it deals with the environment, and having 'no impact'. And you'd be right.

This movie follows the year of the life of a family that is trying to have no impact on the environment. This means creating no garbage, not producing carbon (walking/biking everywhere), no toilet paper, and, ultimately, no electricity. Not to say that everyone should do that (because that ain't gonna happen), but to show that it can be done.

And they manage it... more or less. The wife is less enthused about the project that the husband (as it was his idea), but she goes along with it with the hope that he'll go along with her idea... another child. I'm not entirely sure why they included that thread in the movie, even the wife says it is a loose thread narratively and could have easily been left out entirely... but it is a human interest piece amidst a human interest story, so no movie maker is gonna skip that easy heartstring pluck. But that does help underline one problem with this movie in that there really isn't a cohesive narrative structure to the whole piece. It's more like random bits and pieces as they try to have no impact, intermingled with them having soap opera moments... and then it ends.

The easy joke is that the movie didn't have an impact on me... but that is the fault of the movie makers, as this is a good example of what we could do if we really wanted to.

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