What Lies Upstream

By acknowledging what isn't known about drinking water, but what should be illuminated about the mechanism behind it, "What Lies Upstream" proves an exemplary piece of advocacy filmmaking.

Is "What Lies Upstream" persuasive in all respects? No. Will it make you think twice about what's gone unnoticed in your tap water? Absolutely.

This quietly chilling wake-up call is sure to be one of the most vital documentaries to hit theaters in 2018.

Hoback does an impressive job of methodically building his case. And he's every bit as adroit when it comes to fashioning, over the course of his film, an insightful account of two intriguing players in this ongoing real-life drama.

It seems to me that this timely new film establishes that the current attention given to Pruitt's living situation in Washington, D.C., and pay raises for officials in the EPA, are miniscule compared to the environmental disaster ahead.

A powerful cri de couer about terrifyingly lax government oversight of the water supply.

There's something rotten in the shape of water.

A sobering expose' issuing a dire warning about the whole damn nation's being on the brink of ecological collapse!

Director Cullen Hoback may follow the standard Michael Moore playbook a little too closely-remember when documentary filmmakers mainly stayed behind the camera?-but the levels of malfeasance that he uncovers are genuinely impressive.

Hoback's a thorough researcher, and there's no denying that the questions raised in his doc-and the lack of concrete answers from public officials-should be of grave concern.