By the end of this movie, you will be seriously thirsty. But that’s nothing compared to what’s in store for all of us if we don’t change our ways, according to the experts in this eye-opening documentary about the global water crisis. The most engaging is straight-shooting Erin Brockovich (whom you’ll remember from that Julia Roberts pic), still helping average Joes fight uphill battles against corporate toxin-dumping.
Director Jessica Yu capably knits together a host of alarming stories, from Las Vegas’ dwindling reservoir to the filthy “holy water” of the Middle East’s River Jordan, from stats on America’s heedless H2O overuse to poisoned groundwater that’s changing male frogs into females. In a welcome moment of levity, Jack Black pops up as a spokesman for a fictional toilet-to-bottle water called “Porcelain Springs.”
Yu ends on a mildly optimistic note, but it’s hard not to walk away convinced we’re all in for a rather severe dry spell.