Movie: The East

This is a fun political thriller that takes place in an alternate universe in which the FDA, the EPA and the ambulance-chasing shyster lawyers looking to file class-action suits all do not exist, and so must be replaced with over-educated, painfully earnest and happily egalitarian performance artists. It is this alternate world that confuses A.O. Scott, who says something about the "contradictions of capitalism" in his review, which seems odd given that the movie is really all about government failure rather than market failure.

In any case, at the end of the day the movie's politics exist as a sort of NYT editorial page wet dream (i.e., and this is a spoiler, the misguided performance artists all misbehave because they had bad home lives and the way to deal with problems is for educated people to work through peaceful means), and can be more or less ignored in favor of the fine acting.

Recommended, with caveats