Flint

Anthony Baxter’s film introduces us to some of Flint’s residents, forced into activism to expose a horrific water supply scandal.  Importantly, Baxter followed the story in all its twists and turns for five years, after the news coverage moved on.  

Flint, Michigan, once the centre of a hugely prosperous motor industry, was an area with high unemployment and social deprivation when in December 2015, Governor Rick Snyder implemented a cost saving exercise.  His decision to switch the city’s water supply put the population’s health in peril, leaving them without safe water for years.  

The five-year timespan of the film and Baxter’s relationship of trust with the residents as they fight to get their voices heard, really comes in to its own in the years after the initial scandal is exposed. Added to the mix are an opportunist pseudoscientist sponge salesman, with the backing of a well-meaning but misinformed Mark Ruffalo. The campaigning scientist who brought the initial problem to light is subsequently recast as villain, bringing bitter division and further lack of trust.  The film also captures a misstep by President Obama, asking for a glass of water at an appearance in Flint, assuring his audience that “this is honestly not a publicity stunt folks”.  The disappointment and feeling of betrayal of watching residents, literally cleaning themselves with wet wipes so afraid are they of washing in their own homes, is quite heart breaking.

Although I found the on-camera appearance towards the end of the film of narrator Alec Baldwin taking over as interviewer slightly jarring, Flint is a detailed and enraging account of a scandal and an engrossing watch. Its warning on the full impact of what can happen when trust in authority is eroded means it is not difficult to draw parallels with the recent Windrush and Grenfell scandals closer to home.

Written by Denise Hobart