2023 TRIBECA FILM FESTIVAL REVIEW!
Strewn throughout the United States is poverty. It’s affecting families in a way that is causing them to fall apart–but Guaranteed Basic Income (GBI) is here to save the day…hopefully. When Andrew Yang, a presidential hopeful, proposed the idea of giving families one-thousand dollars a month in order to help provide for themselves, a group of individuals rallied around him, doing all that they can to make this come to life. It’s Basic follows these individuals as they fight for a chance at financial freedom.
Go into It’s Basic with an open mind. Forget about your political beliefs and just accept this documentary as just that–a film intended to educate its viewers. If you aren’t able to look past your political beliefs and keep an open mind throughout the duration of the film, I can almost guarantee that this will be a difficult film to appreciate.
There are effectively two groups of individuals that play a role in trying to convince viewers that Guaranteed Basic Income is a good idea. There’s the politicians, the ones that have the ability to make this become a reality, and then there are the individuals struggling financially–the ones that need this to happen. It’s Basic showcases them both in a way that allows them to reach viewers, in a way where viewers are able to look at them and say “I get it.” Even if we don’t agree with what is being said and done throughout the course of the film, I think It’s Basic does a really good job of letting viewers see the points of view of everyone on screen.
With all of that being said, however, It’s Basic is actually a pretty basic film–one that doesn’t really entice. Sure, it’s interesting the way in which Director Marc Levin spreads the wealth, allowing people from different walks of life to take the screen–but the reality is that this is a rather straightforward documentary that doesn’t contain much shock value, and it doesn’t do much to veer from an incredibly simple and incredibly linear path. It’s Basic will absolutely get its point across–and it’s highly unlikely that anyone walks away from this film with anything but a genuine understanding of the subject at hand. However, the purpose of It’s Basic is more than just to inform, but to persuade–and I’m not sure that it accomplishes that. As the film plays out, and viewers hear the series of testimonials from everyone involved in Guaranteed Basic Income, it doesn’t do enough to shock–and it’s likely that the film will fail to persuade anyone by the time it concludes.
I subscribe to the idea that creating a documentary is one of the hardest types of film to make. As a documentary filmmaker you don’t always have the luxury of money–and your job isn’t just to entertain, but to inform and persuade as well. Narrative filmmaking tends to have a little more leeway than documentary filmmaking, and it’s clear in It’s Basic that not including shock value or just simply not shaking things up a bit, that it’s likely not going to accomplish its goal. It’s an interesting topic (for better or for worse), but Levin and his team don’t do quite enough to get viewers fully engrossed in the film before it concludes. Viewers will more than likely leave with the same mindset that they entered with–regardless of how eye-opening the interviews are.
Directed by Marc Levin.
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐/10
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