The Emperor's New Clothes

Comedian and activist Russell Brand has teamed up with director Michael Winterbottom to bring to us a full-length documentary that further details much of what Brand has been trying to convey through his social media channels of late – the financial injustices the working-class has faced in the wake of the 2007 global financial crisis, in that the rich have continued to grow richer, while the poor have, at best, been no better off. Using a mixture of interviews, archival footage and comedy, Brand takes us back to his hometown of Grays in Essex to discover how the poorest are faring and how it compares to the bankers and CEOs in the same city.

The film presents some very thought-provoking material, and matched with Brand’s personality, it’s a solid mix of challenging and digestible substance. Parts of the film are a little awkward, for example, his insistence when walking inside the buildings of the big corporations to speak with the respective CEOs and then sounding passive-aggressive towards the security, or shouting through the megaphone out the side of the van to all the suits walking down the street. Fans of Brand’s work should enjoy the film, but he presents a pretty one-sided and opinionated argument – it would have been interesting to hear him talk about ways to rectify the situation, rather than simply talk about what’s going on.