The Unforeseen (2007)

89% of critics liked it
(37 reviews)
66% of users liked it
(671 ratings)

First-time feature filmmaker Laura Dunn transforms an idea suggested to her by legendary director Terrence Malick into a cinematic reality with an ambitious documentary detailing the rise of a West Texas farm boy-turned-wildly successful real-estate mogul, and the landmark environmental movement… More First-time feature filmmaker Laura Dunn transforms an idea suggested to her by legendary director Terrence Malick into a cinematic reality with an ambitious documentary detailing the rise of a West Texas farm boy-turned-wildly successful real-estate mogul, and the landmark environmental movement that his actions inadvertently set into motion. In the late-'70s, the city of Austin, TX, was ripe for change. Recognizing the remarkable potential for both growth and financial profit in such a rapidly expanding boomtown, aspiring real-estate tycoon Gary Bradley set his own American dream into motion by turning a 4,000-acre ranch into the biggest and fastest-selling subdivision in the entire state of Texas. His sizable development would stir controversy in the community, however, when the locals learned that it would likely mean the end of the delicate limestone aquifer and spring-fed swimming that had stood as a local landmark for generations. Determined not to let the precious natural resource run dry at any cost, the concerned citizens decided to do everything in their power to fight the development. In the ensuing battle, one of America's most powerful environmental movements was born. Robert Redford and Willie Nelson appear in a thought-provoking film that weighs the economics of the American dream against the destruction of the natural world in an effort to explore just what price we, and future generations, are willing to pay for the luxuries of modern living. ~ Jason Buchanan, Rovi

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Rating, Runtime: Unrated, 1 hr. 34 min.
Directed By: Laura Dunn
Genres: Documentary, Special Interest

In Theaters: Feb 29, 2008 Wide
On DVD: Sep 30, 2008
Studio: Cinema Guild

Critic Reviews

Joe Leydon, Houston Chronicle
By turns rapturously beautiful and unspeakably sad while considering the consequences of unchecked urban sprawl.
Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times
No one who sees this intriguing documentary will want to argue with reporter Greider when he forcefully insists, "We need a more mature regard for the future." We do indeed.
Walter V. Addiego, San Francisco Chronicle
[Cinematographer] Daniel has never shot a film for Malick, though you'd hardly guess so, given The Unforeseen's poetic and dreamy shots of nature that, like the images that open the Malick's "The Thin Red Line," hint at an Earthly paradise.
David Edelstein, New York Magazine
The Unforeseen is a poetic and high-minded meditation on American developers' manifest destiny and the cancer it introduces into the natural world.
Ty Burr, Boston Globe
As frustrating as it is welcome.
Frank Scheck, Hollywood Reporter
An unusually poetic and meditative eco-themed documentary, Laura Dunn's The Unforeseen is as beautiful as it is ultimately depressing.
Craig Phillips, GreenCine
If The Unforeseen has a fault, it would be a slight lack of focus. A flawed, but beautiful documentary.
Louis Proyect, rec.arts.movies.reviews
Powerful study of a landmark struggle between environmentalists and real estate developer in Austin, Texas in the early 90s. A parable for our exhausted, consumerist society that is choking itself to death.
Josh Rosenblatt, Austin Chronicle
The result is an expansive and ambivalent testament to human ingenuity, human intransigence, and nature's endangered yet enduring power to move.
Frank Swietek, One Guy's Opinion
A thought-provoking documentary that's both informative and strangely poignant--as well as beautifully shot and edited.
Mark Holcomb, Time Out New York
Plainspoken yet urgent, it makes the wrist-slashingly depressing topic of real-estate development somehow transcendent.
Jonathan Crocker, Time Out
Even if the director eventually hard-pedals her pantheist imagery into cliché, this inconvenient truth is discreet, intimate and regularly surprising.
Sean Axmaker, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Laura Dunn captures the national ecological battle in microcosm...
Jeffrey M. Anderson, Combustible Celluloid
This one purports to be different by including interviews with the evil, rich developers, but the film is very subtly slanted away from them.
Robin Clifford, Reeling Reviews
Helmer [Laura] Dunn, though her heart is on her sleeve, gives an even-handed view of things from both sides.

Read all 15 critic reviews

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El Hombre I

Although directed by Laura Dunn, who utilizes landscape shots and historical footage paired with casual interviews in an everyday, passively poetic manner, one can't help but feel the presence of producer Terrence Malick. Also utilized are the dreamlike tones and lush, organic… More
Although directed by Laura Dunn, who utilizes landscape shots and historical footage paired with casual interviews in an everyday, passively poetic manner, one can't help but feel the presence of producer Terrence Malick. Also utilized are the dreamlike tones and lush, organic textures even as it dishes out the facts and statistics, having far more in common with the likes of The Thin Red Line than the entertaining and rigid An Inconvenient Truth. However, this documentary does take its' musical cues from Sigur Ros which add to the dreamlike quality. Terrence Malick, a long time resident of Austin, originally conceived the idea for the film and Robert Redford spent his summers in Austin as a child. He learned to swim in the natural springs which feature so prominently in the film and became actively involved when he learned about the developments. The Unforeseen is inspiring in its examination of the power of the individual to fight for environmental preservation and urges viewers to choose between the importance of protecting the individual American's "right to pollute" and the need to secure a safe environment for our future and to do something about it. <a href="http://s273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/?action=view¤t=unforeseen01.jpg" target="_blank"><img src="http://i273.photobucket.com/albums/jj203/goji9000/unforeseen01.jpg" border="0" alt="Photobucket"></a>