At Any Price

(Ramin Bahrani, US 2012, 105 min., 35mm)

Labor Film Series. In this parable, Willie Loman meets Monsanto. Henry Whipple (Dennis Quaid) is a flawed Iowa corn farmer and a sales rep for a GMO seed company, under pressure both to expand his territory and to increase his harvest—“Go big or die.” Bahrani (Man Push Cart) addresses timeless themes: fathers and sons, ambition and rebellion, solidarity and self-interest, morality and survival, and, ultimately, the death of dreams. The film is an unsettling and introspective take on the influence of economic and social forces on an American everyman.