I.O.U.S.A.

"Both a handy election primer and a bowel-rattling cry of fiscal doom, I.O.U.S.A. is an Inconvenient Truth for the debt crisis, a plainly mapped and charted argument against our current economic course," writes Michelle Orange in the Voice.

But Robert Koehler, writing in the LA Weekly, isn't buying it: "Debt is not only not the evil Creadon's film depicts it to be, it's essential. Our current debts and deficits? No worries. One graphic that I.O.U.S.A. doesn't include is a national balance sheet of our assets and liabilities, which would illustrate that the former is more than double the latter. We're in the black, and a film this deep in the red isn't something to be scared of at all - or taken seriously."

Updated through 8/22.

"I.O.U.S.A. is surprisingly nonpartisan, blaming both sides for living beyond our means," writes Sal Cinquemani in Slant. "But as one interviewee states, the truth isn't liberal or conservative, and the reality of how the Bush administration has resurrected and compounded our nation's biggest bad habit is inescapable."

"[Patrick] Creadon aims for the bemused but stern tone of Al Gore in An Inconvenient Truth but only succeeds in scaring the shit out of us, with few practical solutions apart from vague commands to 'Wake Up America' and 'Demand Responsible Budget Control' writ large," writes Matt Prigge in the Philadelphia Weekly. Still, "Every American should see I.O.U.S.A. - provided they can't get the same information, and then some, from more rigorous sources."

Earlier: Reviews from Sundance.

Updates, 8/22: "Equal parts enlightening and alarming, I.O.U.S.A. highlights our unwise preference for short-term reward over long-term planning, a weakness not shared by the film's exemplary Chinese household, which saves more than half of its $10-a-day income," writes Jeannette Catsoulis in the New York Times. "The movie's wrist-slapping tone, however, is softened by [former comptroller general David M] Walker's eloquence and [the Concord Coalition's Robert L] Bixby's rueful, self-deprecating charm as they trudge tirelessly from one town hall to another, urging Americans to save rather than spend. Good luck, boys: Suze Orman has been working on that for years."

"If anyone can make this kind of grim subject material palatable to a mass audience, it'd seemingly be Creadon, whose breezy, enjoyable crossword-puzzle documentary Wordplay was a sleeper hit," writes Nathan Rabin at the AV Club. "Though the filmmaking is playful at times, the film is essentially 90 percent message, 10 percent movie. Then again, sometimes a message is important enough to make other considerations seem irrelevant."

Posted by dwhudson at August 21, 2008 3:29 AM