My verdict: good visuals, good acting, interesting theme about human connections, but there were a couple of inexplicable things, a couple of things needed to be edited, and I felt the ending detracted from the movie. On a 1-5 scale I would give this a score somewhere between 3.5 and 4.
A great documentary laying bare how we treat those who are the most vulnerable in the world and how we need laws and possibly even constitutional amendments to protect the US from factory farming businesses and the business-owned USDA.
The film could have been better, but what the so-called critics miss is that this is a film about depression, so it is supposed to be "slow" and "relentless." I don't think those critics have ever tried looking at things from another person's perspective.
I loved this quote from the film, in which Helen (Ashley Judd) emphasizes to a frustrated student the importance of silence in music:
"Hold on to time. Suspension. Silence. That's where you'll find what you're looking for. In the distance between things."
Quite different from Alien! It was funny to see the gorilla checking himself out in the camera lens, kind of like, "hmm, do I look okay?" Weaver adapted to the different role quite well, and you can feel her passion for her subjects.
