Quartile rating: 6.5/10 · 1 rating
Over the past 25 years, Lauren Greenfield's documentary photography and film projects have explored youth culture, gender, body image, and affluence. Underscoring the ever-increasing gap between the haves and the have-nots, portraits reveal a focus on cultivating image over substance, where subjects unable to attain actual wealth instead settle for its trappings, no matter their ability to pay for it.
Generation Wealth is a visually compelling documentary that draws on Lauren Greenfield's extensive archive of photography and film to explore American materialism and consumerism. The cinematography reflects Greenfield's background as a photographer, with striking imagery. However, the film struggles with structural cohesion—it meanders between personal memoir and broader social critique without fully committing to either, weakening its narrative impact. The subjects interviewed are candid but the film doesn't break much new ground thematically compared to prior work on wealth and consumerism. The ending feels unresolved and somewhat self-indulgent, failing to deliver a satisfying conclusion or a clear takeaway beyond 'excess is bad.' Novelty is moderate—Greenfield's distinctive photographic eye gives it a unique aesthetic, but the subject matter and arguments are familiar territory.