THE STORY – Three grassroot activists fight corporations polluting their communities with “liquified natural gas” and methane gases in this environmental documentary.
THE CAST – Roishetta Ozane, Justin Pearson & Sharon Wilson
THE TEAM – Oren Jacoby (Director/Writer) & Betsy West (Writer)
THE RUNNING TIME – 82 Minutes
Justin J. Pearson was skeptical of “tree-hugger” climate activists when he was in college. He had never heard the words “environmental racism,” which sounded silly to him when he did. But maybe you have heard of Pearson today, as he gained national notoriety for being kicked out of his seat in the Tennessee State Legislature for protesting in favor of gun control. How did Pearson get from his stoic indifference to his impassioned commitment? That twisting trajectory—and that of two others—is the story behind “This Is Not A Drill,” the poignant environmental documentary that had its world premiere at the Telluride Film Festival.
The action actually opens with Texan activist Sharon Wilson wearing her infrared camera, spying on methane gas emissions from local “liquified natural gas” (LNG) refineries. Sharon had a farm in rural Texas that became uninhabitable when fracking destroyed the aquifers underneath it, prompting her to take matters into her own hands. Eventually, she becomes known as “Texas Sharon” or even “Texas Fucking Sharon” to environmentalists and corporate polluters alike, for her tenacity and determination in exposing toxic waste in her community.
Meanwhile, in Louisiana, nearly twenty years after Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, two back-to-back mega-storms have caused tremendous havoc in the poor Lake Charles community, prompting the scrappy Roishetta Ozane to investigate how pollution is responsible for these sorts of toxic weather events and to begin her own community organizing efforts.
Last, we see Justin, whose indifference is shattered when he finds out about a plan to build a pipeline through an impoverished, mostly Black neighborhood in Memphis, chosen because oil execs consider those communities the “path of least resistance” even if the pipe itself must travel a circuitous path. Justin sets out to demonstrate that the community will not be the path of least resistance, as the companies had hoped.
Later on, we discover that fifth-generation descendants of Nelson D. Rockefeller himself bankroll some of these efforts and are a perennial thorn in the side of Exxon and other companies whose purposes the heirs believe have strayed from their family’s values. That is a dubious proposition, and filmmaker Oren Jacoby (Oscar-nominated for the documentary short “Sister Rose’s Passion”) knows that the three activists are likely to provide the emotional gravitas of the story.
The film, backed by the likes of Betsy West (herself a documentary Oscar winner, for “RBG“), proceeds as you would expect from environmental documentaries. Al Gore makes an appearance, of course, and sinister music suggests the oil companies’ and tycoons’ ulterior motives. There is a healthy dose of intersplicing with images and videos of Mother Nature at its angriest, which has become a staple in these kinds of films.
Through voiceovers and interviews with our three activists and their scientific backers, we later discover that there is regulatory capture—meaning the state agencies intended to stop or fine these nefarious activities are either incompetent or in cahoots with those they are meant to regulate. We also discovered that the offending companies engaged in misinformation campaigns to create public doubt about the accuracy of climate change by paying so-called experts to promote questionable theories.
None of these things is particularly unique to oil companies. These sorts of corporate shenanigans have existed since the railroads, the tobacco companies, the gun lobby, and, more recently, social media companies. This is to say that while the film nominally succeeds in triggering your sense of injustice, the wrongdoing it “exposes” is now familiar and commonplace—we have become immune to them, for better or for worse, and “This Is Not A Drill” does not always succeed in removing us from the cynicism that Justin experienced at the beginning of the narrative.
Where “This Is Not a Drill” is most effective in getting us to like its imminently likable heroes at the heart of the story. The three face the usual raft of adversity, including threats, being ignored, and the like. But through perseverance and determination, they manage to achieve small but significant local victories for their causes. Justin is particularly compelling, a naturally gifted orator like his parents, and one who takes to social media early for his cause before most politicians on his side of the aisle had realized they must do so. To the extent that one is feeling bereft of feel-good stories and outcomes, that of these three heroes can provide at least some comfort.
Still, it is impossible to escape the twin realities of the environmental movement and of any documentary that tackles the subject matter. The first is that the massive scale of the problem inevitably leads the film to feel quaint, no matter how triumphant its heroes. The second is particularly relevant to this moment in political history, as the U.S. administration is dismantling most environmental protections in favor of continued energy production. The film, of course, is aware of this latter development and addresses it in title card codas at the end of its 80-minute runtime. The result is that the movie convinces you that small changes are possible, but systemic big ones are impossible. In that way, “This Is Not a Drill” itself turns out to be mildly inspiring—but never groundbreakingly so.
