How to Live on Earth review — Cumberbatch on hopeful, practical climate action

Fredi Devas’s documentary, presented by Benedict Cumberbatch in London’s National History Museum, stitches together segments from different contributors to focus on practical measures individuals and communities can take in response to the climate crisis. The film avoids pure hand-wringing and instead highlights real, positive steps people might begin to take.

The reviewer is agnostic about the film’s sometimes touchy-feely tone, which can feel closer to a school programme than an adult feature, and about the surging score that signals when to feel hopeful or euphoric. Even so, the film offers food for thought. It revives the issue of meat eating and the colossally destructive land clearance required for cattle, but stops short of simply inducing guilt.

Plant-based substitutes such as mycelium are described as not good enough yet, though improving, and the film explores bio-investment initiatives — business models tied to regenerating the natural world, the source of raw materials.

United Kingdom, London

benedict cumberbatch, fredi devas, documentary, climate action, meat eating, land clearance, mycelium, plant-based, bio-investment, natural history