If you hadn’t heard that far-Left Congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) had produced and starred in a new film about her fight for a “Green New Deal,” you’re not alone. Released in 120 theaters last Friday, AOC’s new film, To the End, took in less than $10,000 in its opening weekend — a paltry $80 per theater.
The schoolgirl congresswoman first came to relevance in 2018 when she won a House seat in the Democratic stronghold known as New York’s 14th District by ousting long-term Democrat Joe Crowley in a primary upset. AOC quickly made climate change her signature issue, having famously quipped, “The world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change.”
But her new movie, which tracks the story of four young women “as they grapple with new challenges of leadership and power and work together to defend their generation’s right to a future,” will not contribute much financially to any climate-change efforts. In fact, it will struggle to earn as much as it cost to make.
The film was directed by Rachel Lears, who also documented AOC’s rise from obscurity to the House of Representatives in the 2019 documentary Knock Down the House.
Some critics loved the film, with Nick Allen from RogerEbert.com saying, “To the End is set to ignite more Americans to take action.”
Other critics were less kind. Spliced Personality’s Sean Burns called it “A bummer semi-sequel Lears should have called ‘The Fossil Fuel Empire Strikes Back.'”
Although the left-wing critics at movie ratings site Rotten Tomatoes gave the film a reasonably good score of 83 percent, there is no audience score, possibly due to the fact that next to no one has seen it.
In addition to the struggles of AOC, the film documents those of Varshini Prakash from the Sunrise Movement, which refers to itself as “a youth movement to stop climate change and create millions of good jobs in the process”; Alexandra Rojas from Justice Democrats, a progressive political action committee; and Rhiana Gunn-Wright, the Climate Policy Director at the Roosevelt Institute, a left-wing think tank.
The film had some lofty goals: “Filmed over four years of hope and crisis, ‘To The End’ captures the emergence of a new generation of leaders and the movement behind the most sweeping climate change legislation in U.S. history,” a promotional website for the project proclaims.
Doesn’t Congresswoman Ocasio-Cortez have some questions to answer as a result of her Hollywood bomb?
How many greenhouse gases were emitted during the filming of this disaster? How many carbon-spewing airplane miles were flown in the creation of this flop? How many theaters used up how much electricity showing the film to empty seats?
AOC’s entire story as a legislator has been of style over substance. She has kept her name in the news by being outrageous — making ludicrous statements, preparing meals for herself on Instagram, and engaging in Twitter feuds. Her list of accomplishments is thin, and she nearly single-handedly cost her district somewhere between 25,000 to 40,000 jobs due to her petty war with Amazon.
Now the celebrity congresswoman has finally produced her magnum opus — and nobody came to see it.
