Where To Invade Next
MICHAEL MOORE SUGGESTS IDEAS ARE MORE VALUABLE THAN LAND
There comes a time in many artists’ lives where they decide to fall back on the old standards. Bill Bryson recently retraced his steps in The Road to Little Dribbling, a follow-up to 1996’s British travelogue Notes from a Small Island. Comic-strip Cathy was forever trying to lose weight and saying “Ack.” And you know what you’re getting at a Paul McCartney concert.
Similarly, Michael Moore’s newest, and his first since 2009, feels like a greatest-hits compilation. (Detractors may wish to choose a different ad- jective.) It’s also a bit of a baitand-switch. At its world premiere at the Toronto festival last September, all that was known of the secretive film was that Moore was going to take over America’s job of taking over other countries.
But as the film unspooled it became clear that Moore was merely “invading” foreign lands to plunder the best of their socialist policies for use by the U.S. This was not a takedown of his homeland’s security policy.
So he travels to Italy, where people have two- hour lunch es, six weeks’ paid vacation and ( by their own admission) more and better sex than Americans. In France, he partakes in a healthy school lunch — not a french fry or soft drink in sight — and remarks: “You know things are bad when the French pity you.”
In Finland he l earns that homework has been outlawed; kids have better things to do at the end of the day than more work. Slovenia boasts no standardized tests, and free university to boot. German companies are forbidden from contacting their employees during their lengthy vacations. Portugal has decriminalized drugs. Norway treats its prisoners humanely. Tunisia has legalized abortion. And so on.
Moore adopts his trademark dumb-American shtick, recalling 2007’s Sicko, when he wandered through Canada and then Western Europe, asking: “So, where do I go to pay for my medical treatment in your country?” And he cribs from 2009’s Capitalism: A Love Story when he compares Iceland’s financial regu- lations with America’s.
At each location, Moore “steals” the best ideas he can find, leaving behind an American flag and a series of flabbergasted Finns, incredulous Italians, flummoxed French, etc. It’s both amusing and educational, but it tends to drift in the second hour, to the point where only the most diehard Moore fans won’t be starting to shift in their seats. And the world tour clocks in at a solid two hours, proof that even the most wellmeaning invader can overstay his welcome. ΩΩ ½
Where to Invade Next opens Feb. 26 in Toronto, Vancouver and Montreal, with other cities to follow.