This week we review the well-worn classic film Soylent Green (1973), dir. Richard Fleischer. YES, that’s right! Hot Bloods is tackling Classics! And has somehow managed to cultivate the audacity needed to critique one of the movies that defined cinema as we know it! Buckle up, cowpokes.
Lauren’s verdict:
In order to review a classic I knew my approach would have to differ from our past reviews. It was important to put aside judgement of outdated acting techniques and themes, and to purposefully hone in on why Soylent Green was so ground breaking at the time.
While I knew this would be the best approach – I sure as hell managed to ignore my own advice.
The year is 2022, an environmental disaster wipes the Earth of the nutrients needed to produce crops and sustain meat production. New Yorkers live in abject poverty, surviving on rations of synthetic food produced by Soylent Industries. Thorn (Charlton Heston), a grizzled, no-nonsense detective investigates the brutal murder of a high-ranking lawyer working for Soylent. Uncovering in the process, a web of lies and a horrifying secret.
Heston plays Detective Thorn as tough, determined and unapologetic. Which, lets be honest, are some of the best traits for rugged protagonists. But instead, I felt it was very hard to find anything particularly sympathetic about Thorn. He lies, he steals, he threatens a lot of people, and he physically and sexually assaults women … Awesome.
While investigating the homicide, Thorn meets Shirl, a young sex worker living in the lawyer’s apartment. It turns out, Shirl is one of many sex workers that live in Chelsea Towers. As each apartment comes with its own young woman to service a wealthy man’s every need. To top it off, the owner of the building refers to Shirl and the other women as “furniture”. Which is just the best. Our hero Thorn then intimidates Shirl into having sex with him, and out of this uncomfortable situation forms our central love story. Which is just so messed up, you guys.
I honestly tried to give this film some leeway, as I’m well aware we have come a long way with women’s rights since the 1970s. But it has become too hard to ignore the strange parallel science fiction films draw between the future, and women being forced into sex work and prostitution. Even in modern day films (previously reviewed film Mute (2019) was one of them). This consistent plotline for women in sci-fi is nothing short of baffling. It feels almost as if, in an imaginary universe where we master space travel, discover new worlds, and technology advances forward, the only thing going backwards is the autonomy of women. Men get to become heroes, fulfil prophecies, save alien planets and women are regressed back to selling their bodies to survive. It’s exhausting.
I can, however, understand why Soylent Green has secured its place on the list of classics. It remains one of the only films in history that genuinely shocked audiences with its final twist. And its grasp of environmental catastrophe and societal collapse is not too far from what could actually happen.
In one scene I genuinely enjoyed, Thorn’s mentor Sol (Edward G. Robinson) regales him of the beautiful world of the past, and talks at length about the meals he used to enjoy. As a treat for Sol, Thorn manages to steal real food (a lettuce leaf, an apple, celery, an onion and a side of beef) from Chelsea Towers. And they indulge in the smells and tastes of a meal they will never in their lives, get to have again.
2 out of 5 pocket spoons 🍓🥄
Jeremy’s verdict:
It’s tempting to view old ‘classic’ films through a contemporary lens – often rendering them open to criticism when measured up against progressive social standards and expectations. Representations of women, gender, people of colour, violence, consent, all arise like whack-a-moles at an arcade. Arguments about whether this critical lens is ‘fair’ or not seem neither here nor there, but what’s being said about the film through this lens has to at least go beyond the obvious. You don’t have to whack all the moles, but if you’re going to whack one – make sure you get it good.
The other option is to view a film through the lens and context in which it was produced (as much as I can try and imagine what living in 1973 felt like) and ignore the moles entirely. Somehow neither of these options feel satisfying to me, and it’s here that I arrive at this impasse with Richard Fleischer’s Soylent Green, the dystopian action sci-fi police procedural.
This impasse is made all the more difficult to navigate by the fact that I don’t have strong feelings about Soylent Green either way. We’re introduced to a dystopian future where things are basically awful for everyone who isn’t the 1%. Agrarian society has developed into capitalism which has then run amok with its fixation on eternal and endless growth, such that environmental catastrophe kicks off big time – poverty is rife, many are homeless, the oceans are dying, and real food is reserved for those with the wallets to afford it.
The story we follow is that of NYPD detective Frank Thorn (Charlton Heston), who is investigating an assassination with the help of his friend and analyst, Sol Roth (Edward G. Robinson). This leads him to digging deeper and deeper into Soylent Industries, a corporation responsible for producing much of the world’s food in the form of its Soylent bars.
Soylent Green is a film with engaging cinematography, but beyond this, the narrative, acting, and (admittedly timely) themes feel like they offer us little. The fight scenes were humdrum and the story itself failed to generate real tension for me. Robinson’s Sol was by far the most engaging performance in the film: the scenes where he and Thorn cook up and eat ‘real food’ are delightful. Thorn enjoys the food but it seems wasted on him; Sol, however, is overjoyed and beaming as he cooks and shares, and it’s a scene which draws its beauty from generosity and gratitude.
The film is let down significantly by its framing and characterisation of the ‘furniture’, a charming term for live-in slaves/sex workers who reside in the apartments of the wealthy. We don’t need sci-fi to be a pleasant view of the future, but the inclusion of Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young) does very little to advance the plot, and as far as character development goes, she primarily acts as a foil to cement our perception of Thorn as a corrupt, sexist grub. Most of this narrative sub-plot felt unnecessary and nauseating in its objectification. It doesn’t matter which lens you use to critically approach this film – this pulled me back onto my couch rather than drawing me into the world on screen, and that is never a good thing.
Soylent Green felt painfully average, with small moments of reprieve and shine. It might be of its time, and it might be considered a cult classic, but I would not rush out to watch it again. Watching it in 1973 might have felt different. Watching it for the first time now, all I can feel is that we need more diverse and imaginative futures – even the dystopian ones.
1.5 out of 5 pocket spoons 🍓🥄
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