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Highly Overrated But Still Good

I like movies that are aware of what they are selling... without [any] greater aspirations than to make people laugh and that's it.

The movie's not perfect, but it sticks the landing of its message. It was engaging - thrilling at times - and I personally thought it was a great time.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

Wow, pretty cool.I watched this on netflix and have not read the book.This movie takes a journey through the history of our world through a view you likely have not taken before.Although the focus switches from plant to plant (and even acknowledged throughout, such as the tulips in the background at the Amsterdam coffee shop), the concept is the same throughout, the plants' eye view of the world. They are mirrors to human nature, and have evolved around us, and in doing so, have had us evolve around them. If you don't like this theme, this movie is not for you.A bit uneven in parts but it is a compelling concept. That view of nature and humans' role in it is refreshing to see represented.

The Botany of Desire is a very well done, enjoyable, and informative documentary, though with some flaws. The cinematography is gorgeous. The time spent on talking heads is reasonable for a documentary, and much of the time they are outside, demonstrating as they talk. Unfortunately the academics, including Pollan, are filmed inside, but they are engaging too. The visuals are carefully and artfully matched with the dialogs and monologues. The entire concept and framework remain intriguing, and the video keeps them fresh.The greatest flaw is weak support for Pollan's hypothesis, that plants control us as much as we control them. The first two segments (apples and tulips) illustrate this thesis beautifully. The support is weaker in the cannabis section, where I detect a bit of the joy of intoxication infiltrating the scientific viewpoint as well as an unclear statement of how an accident in the plant's evolution constitutes control of our behavior toward it. The support weakens even more in the potato section, where i gather that somehow our attempt to control the plant constitutes the plant's control over us. I did not follow that argument.But those sections remain highly engaging and informative despite the tenuous connection to the hypothesis. Had Pollan been a bit broader in his claim, these objections would fall by the wayside.

The Botany of Desire is a well made PBS documentary adaptation of Michael Pollan's book discussing humanity's interactions with four different plants-the apple, the potato, the tulip, and marijuana-over the ages. It is both highly informative and thought-provoking.The film itself is a useful introduction to Michael Pollan's ideas, particularly the idea of evolutionary deals between plants and humanity, in which a species of plant provides humans with benefits in exchange for human cultivation, which ensures survival. This concept is particularly useful for understanding Pollan's work, and figures in his other books such as The Omnivore's Dilemma.The ending of the film is especially essential viewing, as it discusses the problems raised by industrial agriculture and the issue of monocultures-the tendency to grow identical breeds of a plant, which could all be vulnerable to the same disease. This fits with his broader critique of industrial farming in The Omnivore's Dilemma, and is important for anyone concerned with the future of American food.

By making themselves as attractive to us as possible, the four plants documented here have spread over the whole world. They have succeeded in getting us to do their bidding. Michael Pollan helps us see from the plant's point of view just what we're doing to the planet. By telling the history of some of our most important plants and interviewing the growers most intimate with them, he clarifies our symbiotic relationship with them. He lays out fairly the opposing views on high tech versus organic growing arguments. He clearly prefers the work-with-nature approach but fully understands that we're completely dependent upon high tech methods. The only really clear opinion he hammers strongly is that monoculture is bad and that preserving biodiversity is the key to a solution. He doesn't quite explain *how* we can do that globally, but he's quite good at getting people thinking in new ways about the bigger pictures of this divisive subject, and this is the main strength of the movie. The photography and production quality are also very high.