‘A Statement’ Review: Paul Rudd in Tom McCarthy’s Climate Docu-Drama

To borrow the title from a vintage Supertramp album that predates the events of this film by five years: “Crisis? What crisis?” In truth, that’s the attitude of a tiny minority gathered in a Florida hotel conference room for 36 hours in 1980 in Tom McCarthy’s gripping verbatim drama, A declaration. But it reflects the frustrating impasse facing the group of 20 scientists, environmental activists, bureaucrats, academics and policymakers after a marathon session of discussions on climate change. And it illustrates where we still are today, as global CO2 emissions continue to reach record levels despite the growing adoption of clean energy.

Echoing the methodical approach he applied to investigative journalism in Highlightwriter-director McCarthy brings careful attention to long stretches of wonky process and debate, somehow making the talkathon dramatic and visually dynamic. But the film’s greatest asset is its excellent and unusually egalitarian ensemble cast, with each of them given time to shine in sharp characterizations.

Nobody will call A declaration an exciting film; it doesn’t have the stirring emotion of another film set in a Florida hotel, Regina King’s. One night in Miamiwhich imagined a 1964 conversation about the black struggle between Malcolm X, Sam Cooke, Jim Brown and Cassius Clay, as the boxer was still called at that time.

Unlike King’s film, which was adapted from a largely fictionalized play, McCarthy and his French co-writers Noé Debré and Thomas Bidegain took a brief chapter from Nathaniel Rich’s 2019 book on climate science. Losing the Earth: a recent history as a source, incorporating verbatim transcriptions for sections set in the conference room of the Don CeSar Hotel, an imposing pink palace on the beach in St. Petersburg. But A declaration might as well have been a play; just having the entire main cast in one room most of the time helps with the theatrical feel.

McCarthy moves through the context with admirable economy, indicating in on-screen text that Congress, in response to reports on the climate effect of burning fossil fuels, convened a group of experts with a mandate to draft a statement on how best to address the problem. Or even whether to call it a problem. This proved to be an insurmountable challenge, even though those present, after a day and a half of discussion, debate and compromise, are closer to being on the same page – or at least willing to acknowledge the source of their concern.

Early on, one of the participants jokes about how many perfumers it takes to change a light bulb: “We’re not sure. We need to invest more money in research.” This kind of obstacle also applies to the government, represented primarily by David Slade (Paul Giamatti), the cynical director of the Department of Energy’s Office of Carbon Dioxide Effects.

Slade is by no means alone in questioning the urgency of action, given the uncertainties of the research; it hammers home the idea that America’s carbon emissions are low compared to those of other continents. But he indirectly highlights the major difference that climate change was a nonpartisan issue 46 years ago, on the eve of Ronald Reagan’s election to his first term, when he observes: “Well, presidents come and go, but if there’s one thing we’ll always agree on, it’s science.” » The presence of an Exxon representative (Eli Bildner) anticipates the outsized influence that the oil and gas industry would have on climate control.

Even though the actors are uniformly strong and clearly bounce off each other like theater pros, there are inevitably some standouts. In addition to Giamatti, they include Paul Rudd as conference moderator, Tom Jorling, who works to keep the conversation productive, ensure everyone is heard, and steer the room toward a consensus statement. Evan Peters is impactful as Rafe Pomerance, director of Friends of the Earth, simmering with anger that so few people share his concern. John Turturro injects sly humor into MIT nuclear engineer Dr. David Rose, a super-brain who evokes the Egyptians as a civilization that failed to heed the warning signs. And Jason Clarke is hilariously offhand as John Perry, a meteorologist turned government scientific authority.

Despite extensive knowledge of projected global warming trends, Perry maintains that humanity will have about a century to adapt once final results are released, blithely suggesting that the U.S. population can be relocated to landlocked states. Theories like that prompt lawyer Edith Brown Weiss (Tatiana Maslany) to comment during a break: “Why is there no agenda? It seems like the blind lead the boring.”

The writing in the untranscribed scenes outside the conference room is expertly crafted, much more so than in McCarthy’s collaboration with Debré and Bidegain on 2021’s quickly forgotten cross-cultural drama. Still water.

The women in the room are a minority, and Edith and public health officer Annemarie Crocetti (Amy Ryan) at various times feel overwhelmed. But both express themselves forcefully as the discussion progresses. Ryan is electrifying when Annemarie intervenes just as time is running out on the second day, urging everyone to view the problem as a human problem.

The other woman present is stenographer Bernadette (Nina Arianda), who feels comfortable during breaks with Robert Cunningham, a young atmospheric science expert played with nervous energy by a terrific Noah Robbins. When he asks Bernadette how she manages to remain detached while topics of such seriousness are being discussed, the DC veteran calls it a professional necessity. But as she sits to the side, taking in every glance exchanged or nervous silence in the room, the arguments begin to get under her skin. This occurs after a wonderful interlude in which Dr. Rose, Bernadette, and Robert are all having a wedding downstairs in the hotel ballroom and she takes in both men’s perspectives.

As might be expected from a meeting that took place relatively early in the climate science journey, the discussions on renewable energy are inconclusive. Dr. Rose becomes frustrated when the proposed language focuses on solar and wind but excludes nuclear, with someone inevitably bringing up the Three Mile Island power plant accident the year before. He seems as surprised as Edith when she speaks out in support of his opposition to the exclusion of nuclear power.

Some will probably question the point of A declaration given that the film ends in collective failure, with the group unable to formulate a statement. But as a microcosm of the ongoing conversation about global warming, it is indeed sobering, infinitely enhanced by Stuart Dryburgh’s nimble cinematography and Bryce Dessner’s utterly pensive score. In any case, as a reflection on the climate crisis, it has much more to say than Excavator.