Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things

Two friends leave well-paid corporate jobs, get rid of most of their possessions, and go on a book tour talking about it. The film follows the tour, cut with conversations with architects, economists, social scientists and journalists. It is not interested in giving tidying advice. It is interested in consumption itself: the question is not how many objects are in a house but an economy built on always wanting more. Its best passages are about advertising and shopping frenzy. The form is plain and low budget: road footage, lecture halls, talking heads. It makes no claim on style, only on argument. Its distribution story mirrors its subject: released independently in 2015, it found a large audience once it went online and carried the minimalism conversation beyond America. Matt D'Avella directed. Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus are at the centre, with Dan Harris among the interviewees. Who it is for: anyone interested in a critique of consumption and looking for an introduction to it. Who it is not for: viewers wanting depth. The film mostly endorses its protagonists' view, never questions class, and does not touch the difference between poverty and voluntary simplicity.