Soylent Green (1973)

Fifty three years ago the events depicted in Soylent Green may have seemed far fetched yet today maybe not so much. Based loosely on Harry Harrison’s novel Make Room, Make Room (though the adaptation changes some events and has a different outcome) the 1973 film depicts population and climate change having rendered life almost impossible for many. People sleep on staircases and queue for hours for synthesised food produced by the Soylent company while everyone suffers under blistering heat twenty four hours per day. Corruption is rife and memories of life before this urban hell are fading. New York in 2022 totters under the weight of a population of eighty million who survive mostly on a diet of high protein food created, they are told, by cultivated plankton and provided by the Soylent Corporation who advertise it as something wonderful even though I’m not sure why they would need to promote something so many people need.. The narrative is driven by a police procedural that enables…