A Statement review: Star-studded climate change drama is more than just hot air

"Do we care?"

That is one of the early questions posed in director Tom McCarthy’s (Spotlight) A Statement, which dramatizes a real-life 1980 meeting between scientists, policymakers, and activists about the issue of climate change. By the end of the conference, participants are expected to have prepared a statement on the problem, and what to do next.

At this point, everyone in the room is aware that the world’s rising carbon dioxide levels mean rising temperatures and global consequences. That those present ask whether they even “care” seems preposterous, especially to A Statement’s modern-day viewers, who are bombarded with rising temperatures, worsening floods and storms, and news that we’re set to cross the dangerous 1.5°C warming threshold above preindustrial levels within a few years.

Yet in 1980, few in A Statement’s conference room can fathom these catastrophic effects. Some, like meteorologist John Perry (Jason Clarke), even downplay them. He suggests that when the time comes, America can just move its seat of power to higher ground, like Denver.

The cognitive dissonance between the reality of our climate crisis and the hypotheticals floated in A Statement can at times turn the film into an infuriating experience. “Do something!” you’re tempted to yell, even as so much of what happens at the conference reflects our current moment. Through it all, McCarthy weaves an effective tale of human communication and the struggles of trying to reach consensus. Still, given its subject matter, you can’t help but wish A Statement was just a tad angrier.

A Statement turns a dry transcript into a gripping discussion.

Based on journalist Nathaniel Rich’s book Losing Earth, A Statement checks us into the Don CeSar hotel in St. Pete Beach, Florida, where, for the next 36 hours, the climate change conference will take place. There, moderator Tom Jorling (Paul Rudd) frets over how best to create a constructive dialogue between differing personalities, such as passionate environmentalist Rafe Pomerance (Evan Peters) and pragmatic Department of Energy official David Slade (Paul Giamatti).

For scenes of the conference, McCarthy draws verbatim from the transcripts of the meeting, taken down in the film by stenographer Bernadette (Nina Arianda). Text from the transcripts appears onscreen at the start of each session, both to highlight the film’s accuracy and formally invite us into the official proceedings.

Much of the text is dry — conversations about limiting carbon dioxide levels, debates about specific wording for the statement. Yet McCarthy, his crew, and his star-studded ensemble bring it to intense life. Cinematographer Stuart Dryburgh’s dynamic camera work guides us around the table in an intricate dance, while editor Jane Rizzo turns lengthy scientific explanations into snappy, anxiety-inducing rides. Bryce Dessner’s drum-heavy score ups the urgency, while occasionally bringing some near-farcical levity to the sessions.

Then there's the cast, made up of excellent heavy hitters who are as dialed in as can be. Rudd's nice-guy persona perfectly suits Jorling's mediator role, with an undercurrent of stress slowly ratcheting up by the second. Peters' Rafe is a pent-up flurry of antsy fidgeting and indignation, a perfect contrast to more curmudgeonly veterans of these types of meetings like Giamatti's Slade. While his character first seems like a tired obstacle to progress, a key scene outside the meeting room allows Giamatti to imbue Slade with a deeper humanity and a haunting resignation.

As two of the very few women in the room, Amy Ryan's public health scholar Annemarie Crocetti and Tatiana Maslany's law professor Edith Brown Weiss each get meaty speeches toward the conference's end that they deliver with aplomb, but they are otherwise mostly relegated to the margins. Still, McCarthy emphasizes their smaller presence in the transcript, often holding on their reactions or their raised hands (they are the only people in the room who do so) to emphasize the baggage of speaking up in that male-dominated space.

But the real scene stealer here is John Turturro as David Rose, a professor of nuclear engineering at MIT who's also deeply fascinated by humanity's ability to solve — or not solve — complex, life-threatening problems. Rose becomes a doomsday prophet of sorts, regaling attendees with stories of collapsed civilizations whose citizens saw the end coming and still did nothing to prevent it. Turturro delivers each anecdote with a wry laugh, summoning a darkly humorous cloud to loom over each of A Statement's sessions.

A Statement isn't angry enough.

A Statement falters when it leaves its conference room and veers from the transcript. The difference between dialogue that was on the record and fabricated conversations is immediate: . There are some killer one-liners, but also several overt attempts to gesture toward Big Life Lessons that border on schmaltz. A scene where attendees crash a wedding also taking place at the hotel veers the film into cheesy territory, even if it does gift us Turturro dancing.

The wedding does serve a bigger purpose: forcing A Statement's characters to think about future generations who will be born into a world that bears the brunt of their indecision and eventual inaction. (Generations who will be watching this movie!) A Statement lays out the causes of all this inaction throughout. Reducing carbon dioxide emissions on a significant scale would cost too much. It would require the whole world to work together. It would force people to give up their creature comforts, something they will never accept. And with Ronald Reagan just days away from getting elected, many government attendees wonder whether they'll even have jobs once he's done slashing the budget.

These are all concerns that resonate today, from the arguments about why significant change will never happen right down to a U.S. president who doesn't give a damn about the environment. (President Donald Trump has twice withdrawn the U.S. from the Paris Agreement.) Knowing all this, it's frustrating when A Statement's conclusion is less of an indictment of the patterns of thinking that have kept us in this mess, and more of a shrug about how impossible solving the climate change problem is.

Yes, McCarthy has crafted an engaging deep dive into a very dense meeting, one that surely reflects the kinds of discussions being had at countless other climate change conferences. Yet in the end, like its characters, A Statement doesn't make enough of one.

A Statement was reviewed following its world premiere at the New York Film Festival. It will be released at a later date.