Finding unity, not division

Cast: Deborah Fallows,

James Fallows Directors: Steven Ascher, Jeanne Jordan

Duration: 1 h 37 m

Available: Crave

It's a jittery time to be a U.S. citizen. Hyperpartisanship, media rabbit holes and competing realities regarding everything from mask-wearing to structural racism form a knife edge that we either navigate gracefully or use to impale ourselves.

But Our Towns, a gently optimistic documentary based on the magazine and book project by journalists James and Deborah Fallows, leaves behind hot-button conflict and internecine arguments in favour of examining how communities are actually functioning throughout the United States — how neighbours are coming together to solve problems, how once-blighted cities are redefining themselves and how history continues to describe its pendular arc from crisis to solution and back again.

In 2013, the Fallows polled readers of Atlantic magazine, asking them to send in reasons they should visit their towns. Then they boarded their single-engine propeller plane to touch down in smallish cities throughout the country. They had a few rules — no questions about national politics, no if-it-bleeds-it-leads interviews — and, when possible, they would burrow in for at least two weeks. What emerged was a portrait of resilience and pragmatism that served as a template in forging new and sustainable futures.

It began in the aftermath of a crushing economic recession.

When filmmakers Steven Ascher and Jeanne Jordan began filming the Fallows's journey, it was before the cataclysmic events of a pandemic, a searing racial reckoning and an insurrection at the U.S. Capitol. But, in some ways, that makes the film all the more potent a reminder that fundamental values still apply, no matter how dispiriting the circumstances.

Starting in California's Inland Empire (where James Fallows grew up) and travelling

to Sioux Falls, S.D.; Columbus, Miss.; Eastport, Maine; Charlestown W.Va.; and Bend, Ore., Our Towns catches up with communities experiencing various degrees of downturn and revitalization. Many were once monocultures, dependent on an extractive industry like timber or coal, and now must find a way to be relevant within a globalized, service-oriented economy. That could mean becoming a hub for vast Amazon warehouses, or millennial remote workers. It could mean tempting artisans and young entrepreneurs with cheap rents and housing to liven up the downtown. (James Fallows has decided a city's chances for survival these days are directly proportionate to its number of brew pubs.) As often as not, it means welcoming newcomers: Whether they're from Brooklyn or Somalia, they can be counted on to inject energy and work ethic into a faltering economy.

HBO MAX Bend, Ore.'s Sky Sharp is featured in the documentary Our Towns, which takes the pulse of the U.S. psyche and finds cause for optimism.