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The American Dream and Other Fairy Tales

2022

Documentary

Documentary Abigail Disney looks at America's dysfunctional and unequal economy and asks why the American Dream has worked for the wealthy, yet is a nightmare for people born with less. As a way to imagine a more equitable future, Disney uses her family's story to explore how this systemic injustice took hold.

	Author	Review
United States	Frank Scheck The Hollywood Reporter	"Abigail Disney bites the hand that feeds her by exploring the way Disney and other large corporations treat their employees (...) the film makes an extremely powerful, timely and important statement"	POS
United States	Kate Erbland IndieWire	"Abigail Disney and Kathleen Hughes' doc has a rich history to draw from and a personal edge to boot, but in trying to cover too much, it fails to really land."	NEU
United States	Peter Debruge Variety	"This engaging economics lesson, bolstered by articulate experts and amusing animated sequences, would be right at home in high school and college classrooms"	POS
United States	Dominic Patten Deadline	"[It] proves to be less an exercise for social and economic justice and more a vanity exercise with talking heads."	NEG
United States	Steve Pond The Wrap	"It’s a self-conscious film, to be sure, driven by a combination of passion and guilt. It’s also a scattershot one that could have viewers wondering if it’s a film about the Walt Disney Company or a film about American capitalism"	POS
United States	Matt Zoller Seitz rogerebert.com	"The filmmaker is affable enough and makes her case well but isn't dynamic enough to carry the film (...) Still, this is a compelling story about persistent problems that affect the majority of Americans (...) Rating: ★★½ (out of 4)"	NEU
United States	Noel Murray Los Angeles Times	"This is an unapologetic advocacy doc; and as such it's likely to rub some viewers the wrong way. But even those who want to watch it just to argue should find that [it] is a worthy opponent"	POS
United States	Beatrice Loayza The New York Times	"Lays bare the rotten core of the American dream and its promise of upward mobility. In other words, it's dedicated entirely to stating the obvious"	NEG

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