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Shared Darkness

A Communal Life in Film, Examined

So after the more loose-limbed diversions of his guitar-gods documentary
It Might Get Loud, Davis Guggenheim is unleashing his activist-uprising follow-up to An Inconvenient Truth, in the
form of the save-public-education documentary Waiting For Superman. Taken separately, on its own terms, the movie’s trailer is a fairly heartrending thing (adolescents with ulcer-inducing anxieties about their chance at a decent primary school will do that to you), but it will be interesting to see how it plays to Joe and Jane Popcorn in crowded theaters, crammed between loud explosions and dancing ninnies. (Paramount Vantage releases the film in limited fashion on September 24, with a platformed roll-out after that.)

Also, there’s the matter of timing: against the backdrop of a seriously depressed economy, will people feel too on edge and tapped out to summon compassion for this issue? That is, will they take the Tea Party biscuit, and lump meaningful education reform in with “things we don’t have the time and money for right now”? Or maybe it’s all faulty science, these standardized markers of national shortcoming in all arenas save adolescent confidence? For more information on the movie, click here.

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