Soylent Green (Charlton Heston, Edward G. Robinson)
This film kind of snuck up on me. It's one of those little sci-fi gems that comes along where the ideas alluded to in the novel and the screenplay actually match up well when portrayed on the big screen. There's also suspense and romance, and an added dimension too: there is awe in everyday things, which is a unique but integral part of its success.
The title, Soylent Green, refers to a compact brand of food that is manufactured in the year 2022. There are many different kinds of Soylent and the mass-marketing of the product is one of the eerie characteristics of the story. We see a futuristic New York City, where mankind has continued to multiply and over-populate. The cause and effect? Animals and plants are now extinct. It's a depressing but fascinating foundation, and the best parts of the movie are in the simple delights the characters derive from what we might consider everyday luxuries.
Take Charlton Heston's character Thorn, for example. He's never had a properly cooked meal, and his scene with best friend Sol (Edward G. Robinson) is a great moment. Heston and Robinson convey the exhiliration of the taste of food in a way I don't think I've ever seen before. We also really feel what it would be like to enjoy a shower with running water; the endless possibilities of stumbling onto a clean, unused piece of paper (without trees in the future, naturally there would be no pulp); and, in the movie's most powerful scene, what it would be like to see a rolling meadow of grass for the first time in our lives.
Thorn is a homicide detective, although in a future of 40 million people in New York City alone, his superior (Brock Peters) seems to have no qualms with leaving most of the cases unresolved. The exception is the wealthy William R. Simonson, who is on the board of the Soylent Corporation itself. Thorn decides to doggedly pursue the case. He stumbles onto Shirl (Leigh Taylor-Young), a woman who served as "furniture" in the deceased man's apartment. The two begin a fragile, physical relationship.
There many nice touches in Richard Fleischer's direction, and his decision to keep a keen focus on humanity at all times can often be a tricky tightrope when setting films in the future. Here, he lets the visuals speak for themselves, including the image of people sleeping in apartment hallways and on the streets, or of people getting into an endless line just to get their water rations, or the disturbing prospect of checking one's self into a voluntary euthanasia facility.
Soylent Green is buoyed by some top-notch acting and a highly involving script. The infamous "surprise" ending may now be common knowledge, but it is still a rather thick and difficult icing on a proverbial apocalyptic cake. Although it was made in 1973, much of its impact is retained because of the dreaded possibility that our society may be moving closer and closer to this fictional reality than we would care to admit.
