The Unforeseen Critic Reviews

Observing locally and thinking globally, Laura Dunn's astonishing debut doc feature The Unforeseen is the kind of transformative viewing experience that has made the current period a golden age for nonfiction film.Read the full review

Although the parts of The Unforeseen dealing with the anti-development movement are pure go-team agitprop, Dunn lends the movie a lyrical cast by combining aerial shots of the transformed countryside with the voice of Wendell Berry, reading from his poem "Sabbaths."Read the full review

What's unforeseen in Unforeseen, a superior documentary by Laura Dunn, are the consequences of a certain mind-set about mankind's relationship to the world and, finally, to itself.Read the full review

Add The Unforeseen to the catalog of artfully produced nonfiction films that show how humans are screwing up the planet.Read the full review

An unusually poetic and meditative eco-themed documentary, Laura Dunn's The Unforeseen is as beautiful as it is ultimately depressing.Read the full review

Though The Unforeseen has a few too many clips of Robert Redford, its environmentalist executive producer, its strength is its realization that these unforeseen developments are making few people happy.Read the full review

There’s nothing wrong with Mr. Redford and his love of nature. But there’s something irritatingly softheaded about the generic, nostalgia-tinged blandishments that the film finally resorts to -- a Wendell Berry poem, a grizzled old farmer wielding a sickle -- in place of truly hard questions and solutions that may effect meaningful change. With the polar ice caps melting, I want more than poetry and blame. I want a plan.Read the full review