Generation Wealth was marketed as an in depth, global examination of the extreme, verging on grotesque desire for more, but is actually more of a retrospective of Lauren Greenfield’s professional work for the last twenty five years with autobiographical musings about how her life was also infected by the desire for more. Greenfield may be best known for her prior documentary, Queen of Versailles, which is why I was eager to see her film in theaters instead of seeing it at (a friend’s) home. I figured that I owed Greenfield money because I thought that it was an excellent portrait of a family, which also served well as a microcosm for what ails the nation.
I also deliberately try to see documentaries in movie theaters because for those of us who can afford to pay for the tickets, if we don’t use our money to fund movies that most people aren’t going to see, those movies may just stop getting made or featured at venues. Well, let me relieve you of some guilt with this particular documentary. Skip it unless you are very devoted to Greenfield’s work! Generation Wealth is a sprawling mess that lacks any analytical rigor though it uses an intellectual veneer as an excuse for being as prurient as a reality TV show except without the pleasure of being told one person’s story thus creating the pleasurable fiction of intimacy and access. I can affirmatively say that of all the documentaries that I have seen in theaters this year, this one is the worst.
Generation Wealth did not at least give viewers the courtesy of telling its story in chronological order. There is a segment near the end of the film that I thought of as the bad mother/good father segment in which she gently confronts her mother for neglecting her as a child and ponders whether that is how she got infected with her an addiction to work. If I’m going to hear about your childhood, unless there is some huge dramatic reveal best saved for the denouement, which there was not, then I need to hear about it at the beginning of the movie. Why are we here? I understand that somehow the subject of wealth transmogrified into other psychological pathologies, but it began to feel as if this documentary could literally be about anything, and there was a danger that it would never end. Never! I did not come here for this, and while I don’t mind when the person behind the camera is also the focus of the subject, it should at least feel germane, which it fails at consistently being relevant and leans towards self-indulgent.
Unlike Queen of Versailles, Generation Wealth felt less sympathetic and more simplistic in its approach to its subjects. In Queen of Versailles, Greenfield managed to walk the tightrope of showing sympathy while not pulling punches in her depiction of the Siegel family. If there was room for ridicule, it felt as if it arose organically from the subjects themselves and not as if Greenfield deliberately cultivated it while crafting her narrative. The main problem with this documentary is that because it focuses on so many people around the world, we don’t get to really know more than a few of their stories, and just as we are approaching something substantial, the focus bounces off in search for a doctor to write it a prescription to help with restlessness. There is a very simplistic, moralistic tone that I found off putting, and I’m coming to the movie agreeing with its premise—that society is on the verge of collapse because of this narcissistic goalpost. I’m in the choir, and she lost me with her preaching.
The main failure of Generation Wealth is that it fails to define what it means by wealth, but rather limits itself to the most repulsive displays of wealth. What about the British Royal family? How do they fit in Greenfield’s movie? Of course, they don’t because they are not the kind of wealthy people that she is talking about. She is talking about the Kardassians, the Trumps and lesser-known names, but she rarely steps back and shows how they fit into a spectrum of broader society. Drug use and porn culture could be emblematic of how the desire for more has trickled down, but I just think that is lazy thinking. No one was smoking crack in the eighties because they wanted to be like someone else. I think that Greenfield takes all the bad parts of society then assigns them to the desire for more and basically blames the wealthy for no longer being sober stewards of discipline and hard work, which I don’t think that they ever were, and it was actually a myth, but the fact that she does not even allude to that as a myth is terrifying. J. Paul Getty, anyone? She never actually makes the connections. There is plenty to blame the wealthy for, but her finger wagging and scape goating is excessive and actually detracts from the real blame that should be laid at their feet.
Generation Wealth does not add anything insightful to the discussion. It actually felt more like an infomercial for the book that she shows as it gets made in China. She is a part of the problem. She figured out fairly early in her career that no one was interested in the humbler subjects of her eye so she found people desperate for attention, willing to do anything, that most people, including myself, don’t know then gave them that spotlight and vindication. While Greenfield correctly assesses that it is impossible to be separate from society’s problems when trying to examine them, she misses the boat by thinking that her problem is working too hard. Her problem is the work. If she considers television to be a form of violence, then her film is too, but the violence is directed at her subjects.
Generation Wealth can’t get the West Kardassians so she gets the people begging to be exploited and feel important, but are lower on the totem pole then implicitly condemns them for their neediness, which she benefits from. They are her victims and audience, but she is like them. She is just smart enough not to nakedly grab for the spotlight. I was completely chilled as they looked at her work in the gallery and positively appraised her depictions of them, especially those who were trying to remove themselves from the spotlight after they recognized how damaging it was. They don’t get it, and she does not see herself as a drug dealer trying to pull them deeper into the life. It was a feedback loop of horrific proportions, and I was ashamed for playing a role in their destruction.
Generation Wealth repulsed and bored me. I have been consciously trying to avoid reality television then fell prey to a reality movie disguised as a documentary, and I consider myself a sophisticated, discerning consumer of culture. I’m a rube. Save yourself and watch anything else.