Soylent Green

Soylent Green (1973)

Image From IMDB

Most people know the ending to Soylent Green. The famous quote shouted out by Charlton Heston before the credits role. It’s a part of pop culture and has been referenced countless times, but there’s more to Soylent Green than the green food cubes.

There’s a lot to love about the world building in this film. About the overcrowded future. The heat and sweat. The fact that strawberries cost $150 a jar. The furniture. The lack of technological development. The infamous scoops. The divide between rich and poor growing to proportions that seem unimaginable, yet…

The film may seem like a relatively straight forward murder plot detective story, but it’s those details that elevate it. Heston’s Detective Thorn helping himself to various luxuries left by the dead rich man in his expensive high rise. Compromising the case for a hot shower and the promise of running water (a sexy girl too, but I think he was more interested in the water)

The whole scene where Edward G. Robinson’s Sol cries because they’re salivating over stolen beef. Both the fact that he gets to taste beef again, and that it really has come to this. Something so common in his childhood bringing a grown man to tears.

It’s a horrible dystopian world without an oppressor. It’s just crisis after crisis with clearly no easy answer. Life on Earth just took a wrong turn and we’ve struggled to correct course. This movie just feels all too possible in my eyes (hopefully excluding the ending, but who the fuck knows anymore) The beautiful juxtaposition of the death centre and the classical music with widescreen images of nature and Earth that was is just pure cinema.

I honestly think this movie gets overlooked. It reminded me of Rollerball in that way. Every scene felt like there was so much going on underneath it. That constant life struggle is shown in every characters motivations and decisions. The case is about life itself, but so is every step of the investigation. It really can be powerful stuff, especially with such strong performances from Heston and Robinson.

If you’ve never seen Soylent Green before but already know the ending, I'd still recommend giving it a watch. There’s a lot more to it. It’s a dirty, grimy film full of desperate characters. Some try to have morals, but the world is too fucked up to be pure. The story is good, but it’s all about the subtle world building for me. No cyberpunk or futuristic devices and tech, just a de-evolution that feels all to real in its presentation.