- Starring
- Anjali Appadurai, Chris Barrett, Heidi Boghosian
- Writer
- Joel Bakan
- Directors
- Jennifer Abbott, Joel Bakan
- Rating
- n/a
- Running Time
- 107 minutes
- Release Date
- n/a
Overall Score
Rating Summary
This will be one of many reviews during this year’s Toronto International Film Festival, to keep up with our latest coverage, click here.
The relationship between people and corporations has continuously evolved over the years. Meanwhile, the sheer size and number of corporations have grown exponentially as well as their impact on society as a whole for better or worse. They have helped our lives in many ways but at the end of the day, they aren’t as interested in us as they are in delivering profit to their respective shareholders. That being said, consumers accept this fact and move on in spite of the fact that corporations have been known to cut corners or go to questionable lengths for the goal of money and profit. While there have been countless examples of incidents highlighting the result of corporations’ greed, they seem to only be getting worse though people are becoming increasingly less aware.
With much different times comes a need for corporations to pivot in order to function in today’s society but the The New Corporation, a sequel to 2003’s The Corporation, is the latest documentary that tells the chilling truth that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite the latest trend of companies needing to become more socially responsible, this gesture is essentially an illusion as they still found a way to use their power and growing influence to find ways around rules and norms in their pursuit of the all-mighty dollar for themselves and their shareholders. These steps were all part of the new corporation playbook for which the film went into a level of frightening detail as one could plainly see all these steps being played out in the world today, finding a way to weave this into the current COVID-19 pandemic and racial uprising. Though it may appear grim, it also offers plenty of hope for the future as many have risen up around the world.
In the end, as the subtitle suggests The New Corporation is an unfortunately necessary sequel but it is still an important one.
still courtesy of TIFF
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The EIC of the coincidentally-named keithlovesmovies.com. A Canadian who prefers to get out of the cold and into the warmth of a movie theatre.