Film Review: 2073 (dir. Asif Kapadia)

It’s easy to say that Asif Kapadia’s documentaries have been some of the most acclaimed of the last 15 or so years. His early collage-style non-fictions were critical and cultural successes, with Senna and in particular Amy (winning an Academy Award despite my own misgivings) proving to be among the big documentary breakthroughs just as the form was really beginning to ascend in cultural cache. But Diego Maradona was Kapadia’s then-proven archive-forward style running on fumes. After some years in television and lesser-seen works, he has returned with 2073, an altogether different film than what audiences may expect from the British director, garnering a spot in competition at the Venice Film Festival for his troubles.

Unfortunately, 2073 wasn’t worth the effort and is honestly a bit of a befuddling film. A documentary and narrative hybrid that’s one hundred percent depressing and naff at once. A rare combo! Emily Watson stars (for some reason) as a mute woman in a future that has experience an ‘event’, sparking a societal collapse. She lives in the remains of San Francisco, scavenging and surviving as very contemporary looking drones fly around through stained red skies. Kapadia regularly turns the clock back (literally) to the present day and beyond, detailing the very factual ills that are leading us to an apocalyptic downfall. Using archival footage he exposes humanity’s very real, casual subservience to loser despots, greed and sheer stupidity. But it is done with none of the skill that would make the film less of a slog.

It's all very noble stuff, but Kapadia and editors Chris King and Sylvie Landra choose to never allow a rise out of relentlessly grim territory. Not a moment of levity or even a shift in tone to arouse interest. Despite a sub-90-minute runtime, there isn’t a single frame that won’t make your face sink. Which, in all honestly, is entirely fair—it is very easy for us to be fatally cynical and nihilistic about the world we live in here in 2025. But as a work of cinema, it becomes a real drain. Doomscrolling: The Movie.

If he’s not going to commit then why should we? It’s half-arsed and neither half assists with the other in any meaningful storytelling way.

The documentary parts work generally as a good starting point for deeper discussions about what has been done to this world that has put us on the path to ruin, but they lack deeper insight. It doesn't get below the Wikipedia menu. The narrative portions are superfluous with Watson unable to do very much to open them up. If Kapadia is allowed to be cynical as a filmmaker, then I am able to be cynical as a viewer, and here it struck me as a filmmaker being half-arsed about a producer’s solution to how on earth they were ever going to sell something as relentlessly dreary as this. If he’s not going to commit then why should we? It’s half-arsed and neither half assists with the other in any meaningful storytelling way.

In some weird, perverse way, Kapadia’s approach seems like it could inspire just as many people to become acolytes of Theil, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos and co than it could inspire to fight for change and justice. The film certainly doesn’t seem to suggest anything that is being done now could work (“nobody did anything” is one of its opening and closing remarks). Maybe if somebody did do that, they’d prove his point. Which may be satisfying for the filmmaker himself, but for a viewer it’s hard to stomach a movie eating itself to prove a point. 2073 isn’t going to change anything, sadly. And the fault there lies entirely with Kapadia.