"There was a world." (Soylent Green (DVD))

Member Name: Jake Speed

Product:	Soylent Green (DVD)
Date:	10/11/09 (116 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice performances, always interesting

Disadvantages: A tad dated

Soylent Green is a 1973 science fiction film directed by Richard Fleischer and was based on the 1966 novel Make Room! Make Room! by Harry Harrison. The film is set in a bleak future New York in the year 2022 when greenhouse gases have poisoned the Earth and widespread overpopulation has led to a tremendous strain on resources and a huge drop in living standards. Real food (fruits, vegetables, meat, butter etc) is now incredibly rare and the province of the wealthy and well connected. The ordinary people eat Soylent Red and Soylent Yellow instead - Soylent a basic (and tasteless) foodstuff made from soy beans and manufactured by the powerful Soylent Corporation. On Tuesdays however, the Soylent Corporation dispenses rations of Soylent Green, a new high-energy foodstuff ("made from the finest undersea growth") that is much in demand, eaten in the form of crackers, and often in very short supply. In this nightmarish, dystopian future, underpaid and threadbare New York City police detective Robert Thorn (Charlton Heston) is asked to investigate the murder of the wealthy William R Simonson (Joseph Cotten) in what is presumed to be a simple case of a robbery gone wrong. Thorn's investigation into the murder of Simonson will allow him to experience fleeting fragments of what life used to be like for everyone - in addition to revealing some very sinister secrets...

A still very watchable and interesting seventies sci-fi offering, Soylent Green is a little slow at times but benefits a great deal from some excellent performances, especially Edward G Robinson's touching portrayal of Sol Roth in his last ever film. Heston's Thorn character lives in a cramped, shabby one-room apartment with the elderly Sol - who is his 'book', a book in this case being an assistant who helps with his police cases and research. As real paper books hardly exist anymore in this grim future, Sol is quite literally a living book as he has access to memories of a time before when food was plentiful and life was better. Robinson's numerous scenes where he discusses life as it used to be and tells Thorn about a time when people had as much water as they wanted and real food are very poignant and Heston and Robinson have a nice amount of chemistry and banter together that conveys a real friendship. "Ah, people were always lousy," says Sol. "But there was a world, once. I was there, I can prove it! When I was a kid, you could buy meat anywhere! Eggs they had, real butter! Not this... crap!"

Soylent Green is rooted in the detective genre more than anything with a film noir feel at times and this contrast works quite well against the futuristic concepts and themes. Soylent Green is not Blade Runner and doesn't always convey a real sense of the future (the seventies air is strong at times) but does generate a good atmosphere with the strange almost luminous foodstuffs, litter strewn streets, shelters, dilapidated apartment buildings, long lines of people waiting for everything and the gently humming industrial processing plants. The film uses matte painted skylines to good effect too to give a vision of an industrialized concrete world where everyone is struggling to survive. It is of course always far too hot in this awful future New York with the characters permanently sweaty and we see that stationary pedal bikes are used to recharge energy. The film also includes a well-staged food riot and builds towards an exciting ending. In addition to the Silent Running type ecological message, Soylent Green has some obvious things to say about poverty and class with the poor herded together in confined spaces or left homeless on the streets and simple things, once taken for granted, like strawberry jam now costing $150 for a tiny jar and therefore only ever eaten by those in positions of power and wealth.

The murder mystery in Soylent Green is generally well handled with that seventies undercurrent of paranoia and distrust as Thorn discovers that Simonson was deeply connected to Soylent and people in high places and becomes more and more intrigued. Heston makes a good, solid everyman to follow the story through and always had a knack for these slightly heroic moral outrage roles. Leigh Taylor Young is also well cast as Shirl, a prostitute/concubine (known as 'furniture' in the film), who comes with Simonson's apartment as if she was a toaster or something. The film has a memorable shock/twist ending which was apparently a concoction of Hollywood rather than the novel but great fun nonetheless as the true nature of the Soylent Corporation becomes apparent. The film is rather chilling at times with a dark edge. We see that this society encourages citizens who can't cope with life to end it all through euthanasia, a range of plush clinics on offer happily promising to give you a pleasant send-off.

Soylent Green sometimes comes across like a loose cross between George Orwell and a murder mystery although Thorn, in some rather camp neckscarves, is not your average policeman. Thorn is underpaid and weary and one of the few decent policemen left. "You know," he muses. "There are 20 million men out of work in Manhattan alone just waiting for my job." When he gains access to Simonson's house to investigate the murder, Thorn can't resist pilfering priceless luxuries such as books, alcohol, soap and real food to take back to Sol. Some of the best moments in the film include Robinson's Sol becoming almost tearful as he tastes some of the real food brought back by Thorn, the mere taste and smell invokoving a powerful and bittersweet sense of nostalgia. The Heston/Robinson scenes are surprisingly touching and Heston's tears are apparently real at times as Robinson was dying in real life and they all knew Soylent Green would be his last work as an actor. One nice touch in the film too are the sinister adverts featuring Soylent that we sometimes pick up snatches of during the story. "...is brought to you by Soylent red and Soylent yellow, high energy vegetable concentrates, and new, delicious, Soylent green. The miracle food of high-energy plankton gathered from the oceans of the world."

Despite a few dated seventies trappings (a memorable moment where a character plays a rudimentary video game), Soylent Green is still an entertaining and thoughtful science fiction film that pulls you into the story and makes you care about the characters. It's worth watching just for Robinson's touching last performance and his scenes with Heston.

Summary: Solid seventies sci-fi