A Place at the Table (2012)

Film: A Place at the Table (2012)

Stars: It's a documentary, though Oscar-winning actor Jeff Bridges is a frequent talking head.

Directors: Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush

Oscar History: The year on this one is a bit of a misnomer, as this film is still in the hunt for both the Best Documentary and Best Original Song categories

Snap Judgment Ranking: 2/5 stars

I promise this is the last documentary for a while that I will start out with the same caveat I start every review of a documentary with-that I have trouble reviewing documentaries.  Quite frankly, I’ve been waiting for a film like A Place at the Table to pop up on my doorstep, since it is finally a documentary that proves my point in this regard: documentaries are hard to review because a poor review of the film seems to imply that you don’t agree with the positions the documentary takes.  In a way, this is true, but only in a way-what you truly don’t agree with is the way the arguments are being presented, not the actual information or debate that’s raging in the film.

A Place at the Table is the perfect example of this.  The film is largely about the great economic and nutritional disparities in our country between the have’s and have not’s (the 99%, the 47%-there’s about a thousand different metaphors people have pulled together for these classifications, but we all essentially know that we’re talking about people living roughly at or below the poverty line).  This is a vital subject worth discussing, and one could make the argument that this is more important today than it was even when the film premiered at Sundance a year ago.  The Farm Bill cannot make it through Congress because of animosity from the right toward the Food Stamp program.  Robert Reich has a documentary (that I sadly missed but it is on the Netflix list) in theaters right now called Inequality for All, which points to the widening income gap between Americans.  Obesity rates are on-track to be higher this year than last, and looking at stats from this year, more Americans have gone from overweight-to-obese than in any other BMI bracket move.  This is a staggering, gargantuan issue, and one that could fill up a hundred documentaries.

Unfortunately for Jacobson, Silverbush, and Jeff Bridges (who frequently features into the film and has clearly championed this cause for years), they try to tackle all of these issues in the course of 84 minutes, which is just not feasible.  The film focuses far too long on the personal stories, in my opinion, than offering solutions for the viewer.  Issue-based documentaries, unlike almost any other art-form have two specific jobs: to inform and to call-to-action.  A film like An Inconvenient Truth or The Cove isn’t just there to tell you about the effects of global warming or killing dolphins; it’s also there to try to get you to make a difference.  It wants you to take your small steps to support politicians that will solve the problem, to get yourself to cut back your carbon footprint or eat only dolphin-safe tuna (and to take a long-and-hard look at whether attending SeaWorld is a wise decision).

A Place at the Table doesn’t really do that.  About the only point in the film where I felt that it was shifting to solution-based government was when Rep. Jim McGovern (D-MA) was speaking about the hunger issue in America, and having politicians on Capitol Hill listen to this argument.  The film’s principle argument seems to be that the government should be the guiding force in solving hunger in America, and there’s a lot of weight to this-hunger is a problem that leads to mammoth issues later on in life (obesity, crime, economic stagnation, and lowered graduation rates are all far more costly to the economy than feeding people), but the film doesn’t seem to want to do anything other than complain about these issues.  The problem is quite apparent to anyone, but they don’t shift the argument toward how the solution can help both politicians and the general populace.  If the point of the film is to condemn the current “food shelf band-aid” and instead try and get the U.S. Government to take a more solution-based approach, the film doesn’t give the viewers enough tools to execute that movement.

The heart of the hunger debate has always seemed like it was too extreme to really tackle.  The film focuses primarily on hunger in the United States, but we know so well that this is a global-wide issue and one that appears daunting.  Part of the appeal of food shelves and food drives is that you feel like you're contributing to the solution.  It might not be much, but similar to using less water and checking your food labels, it's a small step.  The important thing about all issues is to not get bogged down by the enormous breadth of the issue.  If we spent all of our time focusing on the heavy weight of any issue of consequence, we would suffocate and not accomplish.  What someone like McGovern wants you to do is put pressure on your elected officials and make a person's stance on government-assisted food programs part of your decision process when choosing an elected official.  Unfortunately, that doesn't come across in the directors' very sharp world viewpoint.

As a result of this lack of structure, what we're stuck with is the presentation of an issue that we all know is enormous and worth fixing, but without any true solutions.  No one likes the idea of someone going hungry, and while I think that people are ignorant and/or cruel (depending on how you want to look at it) for attacking welfare and food stamp programs without taking a longer, more cautious look at what these programs truly provide for people who work but can't make ends meet, I don't think that the film wants us to simply leave feeling burdened by an unsolvable problem.  The directors seem to imply that, unless we have the power that a member of Congress like Jim McGovern has, we cannot make a large enough difference to make a consequence, but this is simply not true, and I'm sure the directors are aware of this fact.  Hunger is something that can be fought in this country by supporting politicians who want not just better food, but better opportunity for all Americans (better healthcare and better education are right along with access to safe, nutritious food).  We as a country need to say that while we support the concept of faith-based and community-driven food shelves, the government needs to acknowledge that income disparity has resulted in millions of Americans struggling to have the essential food, shelter, and healthcare required to sustain daily life.  That's an argument worth having-it's just not the argument that the directors are able to reach in this noble, but unsuccessful film.