I'm a resident and lover of the Pacific Northwest and pretty far left on the political spectrum, so this should have been a film for me. The cinematography is gorgeous. It's well acted and nicely directed. But I had problems with its heavy handedness and Utopian pretentiousness.
Perhaps if I were younger, with a more absolutist worldview, I'd have been able to suspend disbelief enough to enjoy this film without reservation. But it fell flat for me in a number of ways.
First, there are too many things that don't add up, from having a magically fueled bus available at all times despite a lack of that terrible capitalist green stuff to a balanced and varied diet supportive of an extreme training regimen even though living as hunters and gatherers without taking the time or energy to cultivate crops. Everyone manages to stay clean and well dressed despite a lack of electricity or running water. The children are educated to be philosopher-scholars, musicians, theoretical physicists, linguists, endurance athletes and survivalists (all at the same time, as if any one of these challenges would not be a full time endeavor reserved for ones of special gifts and talents) while handling every aspect of their fully self-sufficient lives in their idyllic nature preserve. It's never explained how the family manages to purchase a huge tract of old growth forest or manages to squat without consequence on public land.
Setting aside all of that, I found the political/philosophical point of view of the film heavy handed to say the least. The father inculcates the children with his westernized quasi-Buddhist spiritual philosophy and Marxist ideals; fine. But the film seems intent on antagonizing everyone who doesn't share such views -- though the themes are softened here and there, I guess in an effort to make it seem more open-minded and, thus, palatable to a broader audience.
Personally, though not a Christian, I see no need to belittle and offend those who are. While projecting a supposedly tolerant and nuanced worldview, with some tips of the cap to broad-mindedness as the father realizes he's been perhaps a tad extreme, the film is actually quite intolerant and demeaning of conventional values. Why, for example, is it a good thing to educate the children on how to steal? I've no issue with a nudist lifestyle and have in fact spent time on nude beaches, so I have an understanding of the ways in which removing clothing can strip away pretensions and leave people open and vulnerable in good ways. At the same time, is inflicting one's nudist philosophy on others a good thing? It's also worth pointing out that among the most extreme of contemporary fundamentalists, Wahabi Muslims have this habit of bulldozing the shrines of Sufi Muslims and erecting public toilets in their place as a means to belittle and humiliate. This film, which tries to embody themes that are open and tolerant, in a very real way commits the same offense as the Muslim extremists of Saudi Arabia with a gratuitous scene set in a public toilet.
At the end of the day, for all the messages the film seems to want to carry, it's really a rather thin and hypocritical gruel, blind to the irony of its own intolerance, offering little of lasting value (except a nicely nuanced nutshell review of the Nabikov novel "Lolita").
I've still given the film six stars because it's well crafted and for its efforts to be thought provoking. Those are laudable goals even if the effort ultimately falls far short.
