An Inconvenient Truth

I have just returned from seeing what I've been referring to as "The Al Gore Movie," or as it is actually called, "An Inconvenient Truth." Aside from how important the film is--globally, nationally, locally--it is a shining, inspiring example of what can happen when a person with as much passion and (dare I say it) downright likeability, doesn't have to kowtow to the lowest common denominator to score votes, or to appear to fall somewhere in the middle.

I'm not sure how you make a 100-minute "slide presentation," as Gore calls it, as exciting as the movie is, but it works. And despite the material--global warming, ice caps melting, millions of refugees--the film feels less like doom and gloom than it does an impassioned call to action, from someone whose been calling for it since the before anyone knew what it all meant, or what it all implied.

There are the scenes of a young Gore, learning farmy stuff from his cattle-rancher father; a yearbook photo showing a bright eyed, nerdy Gore (not so different from the Gore we know today,) during his impressionable school years; the scenes of Gore walking through airport security--alone, which I doubt occurs very often--carrying his laptop, working away on his Keynote software, tweaking the presentation here and there, in hotel rooms, in Lincoln Town Cars. But it doesn't feel like political blather. It feels genuine. And there's nothing in the movie but him talking.

Certainly President Gore (had things gone another way) could never have made a film like this--full of ideas, impassioned pleas for understanding, critical of big business. He talks of the disappointment in 2000. He's emotional, he's vulnerable. It's like he's finally found himself. But, watching the footage of him in the late 80s, the early 90s, it would appear that he was always this exciting. Who knew?