By If The Wolf of Wall Street taught us anything, it’s that wanting to get everything in the world plus everything else is really healthy, and we need to look up to the people who destroy others in order to achieve these goals.
Or at least that’s what way too many people who saw that movie thought. There’s something enthralling just in the mere sight of the lifestyles of those more opulent than we can hope to be. A perverse beauty stands with luxury and power that can make us ignore to an unbelievable degree all the horrible shit the comes with it.
Lauren Greenfield sets to display those who are chasing anything and everything in a way that suggests we’re going the way of the Romans, and man does it look like a ride.
Plastic surgery on dogs, people hanging with gold, throwing around cash, openly admitting that what they’re striving for is killing them. This menagerie of self-destruction is almost as seductive as the wealth the subjects seek to achieve. Despite the alarming message, it’s difficult not to get wrapped up in the sheer absurdity of what’s on screen, which may serve to damage the impact of Generation Wealth the same as most movies about the dangers of wealth seem to crack under the weight of just how mesmerizing they are to behold.
Greenfield has built this movie from 25 years of work documenting this trend across the world, and I’m sure she’ll be able to show some truly amazing sights for a society about to crumble.
But if a total collapse of civilization is what it takes to get movies that look like this, then I’m more than willing to be crushed by the ruins.
Generation Wealth will hit theaters on July 20th, 2018.
