No Impact Man tells the story of Colin Beavan and his family’s attempt to live for one year without negatively impacting the environment. Starting with a firm conviction that this is a worthwhile pursuit, meaningful to the culture at large, Colin’s vision is both challenged and developed over the course of the year-long experiment.

The film makes parallel points. As much as it illustrates concrete actions toward no-impact, it also demonstrates, sometimes just by virtue of taking place in New York, just how inhospitable dominant American culture is to a “no-impact” lifestyle. As Colin and family cruise on bikes through Times Square, their smiles cannot obliterate the sea of cabs and huge flashing lights that surround them. Though at the end of the film Colin may be changed, the viewer is also forced to reckon with the fact that his changes don’t begin to touch the existing super-structure in which the well-meaning individual toils to evolve.

In one of the best moments of the film, 60’s anti-war activist Mayer Vishner, who shares his vegetable garden with Colin, points out to Colin that his wife Michelle works for Business Week which promotes the American corporate capitalist system (a blatant wrinkle in their family’s new virtue). Vishner says that if Colin thinks his individual efforts are going to do anything to knock out that system, he’s delusional. However, as a film about the individual’s challenge to live in tune with his or her evolving values, No Impact Man provides a whole lot to like, question and ponder.

Anticipating adjustment time, Colin’s experiment works in phases. The first phase is to eliminate all trash, freeze consumption of new products, eliminate carbon-fueled travel, dump the TV and purchase only local (within a 250 mile radius) food. Michelle, a self-described consumer and reality TV junkie, embarks on the journey from a supportive but uncertain perspective. She doesn’t feel Colin’s same inspiration but she loves him and is willing to cooperate more or less with his vision.

Early on, we see her begging Colin to give her permission to get a coffee so she can finish a story for Business Week. Here we see the inevitable situation we all face when we make world-bettering resolutions – the moment they come into conflict with something we want. What’s it gonna be? We don’t find out whether Michele got the coffee that night but later in the film she does state that she’s successfully finished a story without coffee and feels okay in general without it.

Early in the experiment, Colin and his family become the subject of a New York Times feature article with the tongue-in-cheek title “The Year Without Toilet Paper” (yes, eliminating all trash included TP). After the story runs, we see Colin cope with a maelstrom of public attention both in the form of media outlets wanting interviews and reader comments full of vitriol. Michelle tells Colin about coworkers avoiding her and gossiping that what they’re doing is unhygienic.

Undeterred by the criticism, Colin institutes Phase 2 of the experiment—getting rid of all store-bought cleaning products and replacing them with homemade, non-toxic versions (Dr. Bonner’s Castille soap, Borax and baking soda). He fills up their empty bottles with the solution and gets to work cleaning the kitchen.

The last phase— cutting out electricity—is the most dramatic and comes halfway through the yearlong experiment. To mark the occasion, Colin and Michelle throw a party. As the circuit breaker for the apartment is pulled, candles are lit and the guests perform charades in the flickering light. It’s shortly after the shift that we see Colin’s only real moment of doubt in the film when, not unlike a child frustrated at an ill-constructed sand castle that he thought was going to be perfect,  he says “This is stupid.” But the moment of frustration is short-lived and Colin musters the resolve to see the experiment to its conclusion. Eventually, he also gets a solar panel to power his laptop and other essentials.

Here, a question arises. After switching off the fossil-fueled electricity, why didn’t Colin seek out more new technologies powered by renewable energy? It’s possible he nixed that option given the commitment to make no new purchases during the year (though he did buy the solar panel). But, it would have added some excitement and hopefulness to the experiment and demonstrated that the shift to a lesser impact on the environment is not only about privation, but also innovation.

They say a good ending is a new beginning but the movie leaves off uncertain where Colin and family’s journey will lead. Toward the end of the film, we learn that Michelle has had a miscarriage. She talks directly to the camera when she says that the promise of a new baby would have made a perfect ending to the film, but instead, they are left with a lot of “loose ends.”

As the movie wraps up, hopefulness does rise from the sense that Colin himself will continue his work, now within a wider web of community groups, environmental non-profits and educators. We see clips of him giving talks at NYU and on a playground, and another of him speaking with Majora Carter about environmental justice for low-income communities.

When people ask him what’s the number one thing they can do to start making changes in their own lives, Colin tells them to join an environmental community group. I thought this was a great response and probably reflects the best discovery of the year-long journey—that one person alone can’t figure out the best path toward a better way of living, but with the support and shared knowledge of groups, we can make progress together. And as we grow in numbers, maybe even begin to challenge the dominant super-structure of burn, ship, consume and throw away.

Though many criticize Colin and his family for doing what they did from the perch of Manhattan bourgeois comfort, I wonder if the same film from, say, a lower-income, university-employed family living in New Paltz would have gotten as much attention. New Yorkers respond strongly to Colin’s experiment because they identify with Colin and likely his experiment will be most meaningful to those living in New York. In fact, though it displays what an energy-guzzling megalopolis New York is, the film also shows that going no-impact here is probably a lot easier than doing the same in a lot of other urban and suburban places in America. Now, we need a No Impact family in the suburbs of Houston. What does one do without the Green Market and a 35 mile commute to work?