Richard Wilkinson, a famous British sociologist, once said “If you want to live the American dream, move to Denmark.” The theory behind his statement is that social mobility, and in essence “The American Dream,” is easier to achieve outside of America. The HBO documentary Hard Times: Lost on Long Island follows a group of newly unemployed middle aged men and women. That’s it. The movie never moves from the one dimensional concept of “here is your unemployed neighbor.” The film fails to go beyond the purpose of “unemployment is high in America.” In my opinion, that hardly merits a 50 minute documentary. Maybe a 2 minute public service announcement would be more appropriate.
The film, directed by Marc Levin, goes way too deep into the personal lives of its main characters. Levin endlessly berates the viewer with sob stories of the day they were excommunicated from the American work force. The overly emotional tone to the recounts of being fired hardly seem consistent with the content. The film has you forever hoping that it will conclude in some manor that makes the whole watch meaningful, yet it does not deliver. Levin glosses over his sole opportunity to shine when he discusses “unemployment discrimination,” or firms not accepting applications from the unemployed. That is the issue that demands cinematic exploration, for the concept of companies not hiring the unemployed is on trial in the Supreme Court. This topic is discussed for maybe all of 30 seconds, which is the major disappointment of the film, aside from its redundancy. For every person saddened by unemployment, there is another who is saddened by EMPLOYMENT, the latter hardly deserves a fifty minute documentary and therefore neither should the former.
Rating: Hard Times is hard to watch (5/10)
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