Movie Review: Soylent Green (1973)

Soylent Green (1973) directed by Richard Fleischer

In the far distant future, i.e. 2022, New York City is overpopulated with forty million people. Greenhouse gases have caused a year-round heat wave and decimated food growth. Food production has turned to processed wafers made by the Soylent Company, using soy beans or plankton or other cheap, readily available sources. Fruits, vegetables, and meat are luxuries for the rich. Charlton Heston is Thorn, a New York cop who investigates the murder of William Simonson (Joseph Cotten), seemingly a burglary gone wrong. Simonson is one of those people who can afford fruits, vegetables, and meat because he's a board member of Soylent. He also has a "piece of furniture," Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young). She's rented along with the apartment. She cooks meals and provides bedroom pleasures. Simonson's bodyguard (Chuck Connors) was out shopping with Shirl when the attack happened. Their convenient absence and the fact that nothing was taken from the apartment make it look more like an assassination than a random killing. As Thorn investigates more, he comes to an even more shocking discovery about their society.

The movie is famous for the big reveal (much like The Sixth Sense or The Crying Game or The Planet of the Apes). It is a great twist (which I won't spoil here in case you haven't heard it or seen the movie) and pulls together a lot of the themes of the movie. The massive overcrowding of people leads to a kind of numbness about the plight of the poor. The local Catholic church shelters the poor but no one else seems to care. Thorn has to navigate crowded staircases and streets. He tries not to step on people but has a hard time. Riots break out when food and water rations for the day run out. Thorn and his fellow cops quell the riots with little care for the rioters. Even the rich people tend to treat one another with callous disregard. Shirl isn't the only "furniture" in the movie, and the other women don't seem particularly happy with the arrangement. The disregard of human dignity is so widespread that hardly anyone in that world cares about it.

The production does look like a 1970s film. Like today, dystopian predictions led to dystopian depictions of our future. Now that we are so close to 2022, the world of Soylent Green still seems far off and not entirely convincing. Soylent Green was the Interstellar of its day. It looks impressive by contemporary standards but now looks forty-five years old. If you are willing to make allowances for that, it is an interesting film.

Recommended.