The Disrupted

Three middle-class Americans are fighting to retain a good life once theirs are receding because trying to get jobs or losing their jobs puts them in a desperate employment race. Don is a struggling Kansas farmer who also has cancer, both challenges even when farmers are receiving billions in subsidies and Obamacare has brought health insurance to millions who did not have it before.

Cheryl is finding being an Uber and Lyft driver less promising than when she started. Pete, an ex-con, rehabbed himself with a job from 3M for 12 years but its closing has brought him in combat with his own attitude and a discerning wife.

While the doc, quietly and carefully directed by Sarah Colt, doesn't harangue about the death of the middle class, these three subjects speak loudly about their loss of money and pride. Yet, this film is apparently produced before the pandemic and maybe even before Donald Trump's worst days. In that regard, it's challenging from our current perspective to commiserate with subjects depicted before America's current dark days. In other words, things got much worse after the doc was done

With corporations like 3M coldly laying off and farmers forced off farms, not to mention Lyft and Uber preventing their drivers from becoming like real employees, the middle class is suffering an it's not even in virus times. However, the film also tries to show individual responsibilities such as Ned's post-prison attitude or Cheryl's unfounded dreams of success.

Still, the doc doesn't demand our sympathy; rather it ends up showing how the American dream itself can be derailed without a virus or weak leadership. In a way, The Disrupted is about as existential as a doc can get. And that's good.

A beautiful and timely film about how the "American Dream" seems economically out of reach for many Americans. In this intimate and touching documentary, you enter the lives of three struggling workers. What sacrifices do Uber drivers make? How does the sense of responsibility to past and future generations weigh on a small farmer? How does the unemployment system support those who desperately need it? With beautiful filming you will find yourself in the Uber queue, at a cattle sale, and in an HVAC class. The incredible subjects will tell you much that you need to know.

I not a review kind of person, but I like to give praise when praise is due! Shout out to Drew Seeley. Compelling and a must see!

1m ago Actually the filmmaker, Sarah Colt, was being prescient in this narrative of 3 families pre-Covid and subsequent economic collapse. As a filmmaker, she is possessed of a tender heart and a beautiful eye. She has also chosen compelling subjects. The ones in particular who grabbed me were the young couple we see in the accompanying picture. They moved me, well all of them did, and I would love to know how they are faring. Visually and thematically interesting. Give it a watch!