Rent Soylent Green (1973)

1973 sci-fi drama on a dystopian world devastated by pollution and overpopulation - Soylent Green review by Philip in Paradiso

This is an interesting film on 2 levels. First of all, the film itself is well-made and keeps you interested to the end. Second, it is fascinating to see the world of today (2022 in the movie) as seen in a film made in the mid-1970s. The story focuses on Robert Thorne (Charlton Heston), who is an NYPD detective investigating the murder of a wealthy and influential individual called William R Simonson. The victim sat on the board of the Soylent Corporation, which dominates life in the city, where it provides food to the army of destitute and homeless residents, in the form of a new product called Soylent Green. Thorne suspects there could be a conspiracy behind Simonson's murder. The story develops from this point onwards.

The film is built on the Malthusian premise that Western civilisation has collapsed due to pollution and overpopulation. Life in New York City, where 40 million people live, has become a fight for survival: it is nightmarish and brutal. Only the élite - and those linked to the Soylent Corporation - enjoy any degree of security and comfort. In some ways, the movie is prescient: we can see, today, the impact of global warming and climate change. What is absent from the future as predicted in the film is advanced communications: there are no computers to speak of, and of course no internet, and people still rely on physical libraries and paper records to find information. (The personal computer appeared in 1971-1975.) In the context of the story, this could be a consequence of societal and civilisational collapse, however, and a deliberate angle adopted by the director.

Overall, this is a good, intriguing film. It is perhaps not quite as gripping as I expected, given the rave reviews it has had over the years. It is a disturbing movie, but not quite a masterpiece. I would still recommend it.

A Grim Prophecy - Soylent Green review by JL

A thoughtful and chilling view of a dystopian future all the more effective by a very moving final performance by a terminally ill Edward G Robinson. An instant classic with a stark warning!

Powerful film that resonates as much today as in the early 1970s - Soylent Green review by AB

This is as powerful a film as when it was released in the early 1970s, when I first saw it. With stars Charlton Heston and an ageing Edward G Robinson giving deeply convincing performances It paints a picture in vivid detail of the end point of climate change and our dying planet. The scenorio hinges around a wealthy elite able to control the populace and maintain some sort of reasonable lifestyle while avoiding the fate of the people, who live in a hothouse of hell, with handouts of dubious flat biscuits or soylent (of the title) as food. There are also disturbing social and feminist narratives of women's exploitation by this same elite. Amazingly the original book Make Ready, Make Ready by Harry Harrison was set in 2022, so he was (hopefully) a few decades out in terms of the level of disintegration of the climate, social order and state of the planet. His population predictions were about 10 billion out too, and unsurprisingly the technology is dated. However, we watch such dystopian movies with the hope that the efforts towards renewable energy and better technologies might mitigate some of the damage. But this is one of those films you are umlikely to forget and a sharp reminder we can never be complacent in the face of our human impact on the planet and the political and social challenges we face to try to turn the juggenaut around. It is worth encouraging people particularly the younger generation to watch and take heed.