WEWORK: OR THE MAKING AND BREAKING OF A $47 BILLION UNICORN (Jed Rothstein, USA). 101 minutes. Rating: NNN
There’s a new subgenre that’s been gaining steam over the last few years: the Millennial bullshit doc. As so much of Silicon Valley techno-utopianism and aspirational influencer culture reveals itself as empty and toxic, we’re getting a wealth of films about the generation’s smarmiest grifters.
In the mould of Billy McFarland – the man behind the disastrous Fyre Festival, profiled in two competing 2019 docs – this one gives us Adam Neumann. He’s the tall, charismatic former frontman of WeWork (or, to use his term, the “C-We-O”), the New York City-based company that popularized the concept of co-working and exploded in valuation before a spectacular fall.
He aims to disrupt work culture, co-living and education. He talks hyperbolically about changing the world, brags about a company culture that could apparently end world hunger. He theorizes about how Millennials don’t just want a job or career, but a calling – and he exploits that fact to his benefit. Behind all the spin, one of the talking heads reminds us, this is a company that rents people desks. In a lot of ways, it operates more like a cult.
Rothstein’s film is heavy-handed itself. Some of the tactics work well – like undercutting Neumann’s over-rehearsed proselytizing by showing what happens before the cameras start rolling – while others, like the ever-present ominous score, try to elevate material more than it needs to be. And a final attempt at drawing a tie between WeWork and the pandemic – with a strange reveal of all the interview subjects putting on masks – is very undercooked.
Available to stream from April 29 at 10 am here. Live Q&A on May 4 at 7 pm.
