Tomorrow

French actress Melanie Laurent (sharing co-directing credit with Cyril Dion) is the latest showbiz star—following Leonardo DiCaprio, George Clooney, etc.—to bemoan greed-inspired global warming and look for sustainable solutions using a well-thumbed passport. She finds bicycling-based cultures taking root in major European capitals, urban farming in blighted Detroit, and burgeoning recycling in San Francisco. Declaring that money is the root of the evil behind mass extinction and pollution, the filmmakers speak to “transition”-thinking economists about ways to roll back the march of big business and relentless consumerism, instill diverse currencies (as opposed to the Euro), and develop more responsible banks, better education, and representative-democracy political systems. The all-encompassing-manifesto-approach avoids falling back on easy emotional-trigger shots of sweltering slums, melting ice caps, destroyed rainforests, and drowning polar bears, in favor of talking heads (author Jeremy Rifkin is among the interviewees), charts, and economic spreadsheets. Tomorrow makes reasoned and intelligent arguments, and while it might be a trifle dry over the long haul, it also relies on upbeat pop ballads to liven up the proceedings. Recommended. (C. Cassady)