MY EXTINCTION
Directed by Josh Appignanesi
Certificate: 12a
☆☆☆

IS Josh Appignanesi a director, an actor, a documentary-maker, a journalist or the purveyor of a satirical form of reality TV?

He combines all these roles in his latest bout of cinematic navel gazing, turning the camera on himself to make a film about him going on XR demonstrations.

In My Extinction, he considers the frightening reality we have and schools himself about how our exploitative capitalist model is essentially killing the planet.

His best known feature was the 2010 David Baddiel-scripted The Infidel, while in more recent times he was turned to using his life as a topic to document: in his film The New Man, he tackles his approaching fatherhood. In Husband, we are taken to New York with his wife Devorah Baum as she embarks on a book tour and he tags along, making great play of how useless he is at everyday life.

Here, Josh again takes centre stage. We are told that a big money film project has fallen through via a one-way conversation with his agent, and at a loose end, he discovers Extinction Rebellion and decides to possibly lend his weight to it.

The film is a personal memoir, but because it feels staged – the way scenes are set up means this is not a camera-constantly-rolling effort with the story being made in the edit – it is hard to gauge what journey we are going on with the director / lead.

This crossing of genres leaves the viewer in a form of limbo. There is no revealing critique of climate science or the ideological battles raging. It has no fresh consideration of XR and their tactics.

At one point, as the narrative heads towards a climatic finale when Josh gives a speech at an XR demo, he reveals he didn’t know anything about what goes on at 55 Tufton Street – home to the Institute of Economic Affairs and other right-wing pressure groups that for anyone with a passing interest in progressive politics recognises as Mount Doom.

The confession adds further questions as whether this film is meant to a political polemic, or a funny, sideways look at how we should all roll our sleeves up and save the planet?

Josh instead causes raised eyebrows and confusion about what he is up to rather than laughs.

And with a topic this serious, that’s not a bad thing.