There are many kinds of documentaries one might want to see from “I Am Greta,” a Hulu portrait about famous teenage Climate Change activist and eco-warrior Greta Thunberg. One might hope for something akin to “The Inconvenient Truth,” with tons of sobering statistics and easy-to-understand graphs and charts led by the passionate teenager (you won’t find that here). One might wish for a doc that explains who Thunberg is, what makes her tick, and what set her off on this journey of activism (that’s here, but in more of an oblique way). And one might just want something rousing and inspirational that hopefully urges other people to dream big and perhaps motivate a similar commitment (lots of that, a terrifically moving score by Jon Ekstrand and Rebekka Karijord, helps). What this documentary does make clear is that, much like the hostile world we live in, where personal motivations are seemingly always questioned, and our demand for “the truth” is ruthless and yet often thwarted, everyone wants a piece of Greta Thunberg. More to the point, “I Am Greta,” perhaps doesn’t claim to be the definitive portrait of Greta Thunberg, but instead, a dutiful chronicle of a most extraordinary year.
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Director Nathan Grossman’s “I Am Greta” may be a bit uneven, a little unsatisfying, and low on Climate Change context but it will stir the spirit and absolutely inspire your deep admiration for this devoted and steadfast teenager, and her commitment to real change and political accountability. Furthermore, if there’s an unexpected strength threaded through Grossman’s ‘Greta,’ it is the message that activism is a grueling, lifelong marathon, and not a sprint. Change is hard, change takes time, but Thunberg butts up against this reality with her acute understanding of the urgency the planet faces.
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Now 17 years old, Grossman’s doc starts in 2018, in the rise up to Thunberg becoming the face of Climate Change and Global warming activism (she went on to receive two consecutive nominations for the Nobel Peace Prize starting in 2019).
Then just 15, Thunberg starts gaining national attention in Sweden for her school strikes held outside the Swedish parliament. The world quickly begins to take notice, accelerated like wildfire by social media, and Thunberg is soon faced with the dilemma of having to keep up her education while being asked to speak at Climate Change conferences around the world.
Greta quickly becomes the flashpoint poster girl for Climate Change, her advocacy and fiery, demanding speeches are picked up around the world. Given how quickly she rose to prominence, “I Am Greta” is compacted, really only running one year, from August 2018 to August 2019, approximately, Grossman effectively given access only to that time. Still, a picture emerges nonetheless, even if it’s clear the documentarian is stressing to document a snowballing situation.
While Grossman arguably doesn’t focus on who Thunberg is as a human outside of Climate Change activism, her spirit shines through regardless. Despite having Asperger’s syndrome, OCD and selective mutism—in a pre-2018 depression about the environment, she stopped talking to anyone outside her family for a year—Thunberg is hyper-focused and restlessly adamant about her cause. If the documentary reveals little about Greta aside from her love of her family and dogs, it’s arguable that because of her autism spectrum condition, she has few interests outside of what she has decided is her one true purpose.
For better or worse, as she seems to frame it at one point, Thunberg’s purpose is to sound the alarm and get people to listen. Really listen. Thunberg’s duty to her cause is a moral obligation and her ethical and principled compass points sharply at a true north, even if she realizes the message needs to be abrasive enough to cut through the noise. Her myriad critics—many of whom are shown here vilely disparaging and trying to discredit the young girl, including an odious Fox News host who calls her mentally ill, and the ever-detestable Piers Morgan—argue that she’s a teenager with an unrealistic point of view about not only Climate Change, but the way change works within our bureaucratic systems. They may have a point about the molasses that seems to coagulate in political change, but “I Am Greta” only further illustrates then why activists like Thunberg are so vital to the world.
Perhaps the most interesting parts of Grossman’s doc are the challenges Thunberg faces and the despair and disillusionment that creeps up on her in the process of hearing empty promises or attending bullshit Climate Change conferences. A sense of hopelessness even begins to surface, a despondency about becoming everyone’s favorite selfie subject of choice—a shallowness that aggravates the determined young activist. And Greta precociously realizes through conversations with fellow young activists, that to stay in this fight for life, she must conserve her energy, faith, and courage, and live to fight another day.
Grossman’s doc also intensely captures the idea of the whirlwinds of fame, the stress involved and the overwhelming feelings a shy teenager, who already doesn’t like to be touched or crowded around, must endure when everyone wants a piece of her. Celebrity isn’t for Thunberg, she isn’t made of that stuff nor does she seek the limelight. This idea, of course, only demonstrates her bravery, a notion further expressed in her famous outraged 2019 United Nations Climate Action Summit address— “This is all wrong. I shouldn’t be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope? How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words,” Thunberg hisses in a speech that took place at the height of her fame and many assumed would be heroically inspirational and instead is venomous, and bitterly angry with the world leaders that have failed us.
It’s not endearing stuff, but that’s the point. Thunberg isn’t here for your one-and-done social media post and her disdain for superficial activism is actually quite heartening. “I Am Greta” gets bogged down in her carbon neutral transatlantic voyage across the Atlantic Ocean from England to New York, it’s visually drab and not very dynamic, but it does re-establish her once again as a serious person of integrity and great moral conviction. And with that, ‘Greta’ concludes, surely to be revisited one day given her story is just getting started. Regardless, this narrative point of unswerving principle is a good inspirational send-off note and perhaps a necessary kick in the pants: Greta Thunberg shouldn’t be here leading the charge on the frontlines. But if she won’t, who will? And it’s this youthful dynamic spark that will surely inspire new generations to keep pushing forward and fight the good fight. [B]
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