Gaslit (2026)

Longtime activist and actress Jane Fonda was never one to mince words. And in Greenpeace USA's documentary GASLIT, the unflinching film opens with Fonda's appearance on nighttime host Bobbie Wagganat's program in 1980, and her no-holds-barred answer when asked about her thoughts on President Ronald Reagan's terms in office.

I am not too hopeful our problems are going to be solved. Frankly, I think it's going to have to come from grassroots from people and communities who start saying, 'I don't care if I'm a Republican or Democrat, young or old, right or left, or whatever. I've had it. And I'm going to get together with you and you and you and we're going to do something about it because our leaders aren't doing it and we're going to have to force them to.' ....We've got to do it ourselves. That's the only way we've done it. It's what our country stands for and if it means being controversial, means stirring up trouble, stirring up the dust. It's the only way it's going to happen. I have total and complete confidence in us as a people when push comes to shove, we're going to do it.

Almost 46 years later, the late night appearance acts as a prelude for Fonda as she prepares to protest inaction on climate change in New Orleans, the chosen “home” of a corporate World LNG & Gas Series: 17th Americas Summit. Her preparation is a road trip embarking from Texas to Louisiana to visit a number of activists and communities directly impacted by climate change and the on-going largest fossil fuel expansions in history.

The term climate change is, or can be, all too familiar. Decades of messaging and imagery often limited to Earth Day once a year spotlights paintings of people from around the world holding hands, warnings that it's never too late to love the planet, and overdue promises made by governments and potential elected officials. Yet despite the pervasive call from inside the house of increasing environmental devastation, rising energy costs, and famine, it's an issue that is often trivialized to poking fun at tree huggers; a malleable excuse for why our summers get hotter and our winters grow colder; a dire call that goes largely unanswered.

Many of these calls, or stories, come to light as Fonda begins at the Permian Base in Texas, the #1 producer of greenhouse gases in the world and the largest oil and gas producer on the planet.

To breakdown the framework of air, land, and water pollution, the film offers a basic understanding of horizontal drilling and fracking. The former, according to the American Petroleum Institute, can allow up to 20 or more drills on a single well pad to extract and pipe oil and gas along the surface for extraction. The latter, known for the main producer of liquefied "natural" gas or LNG, drills over a mile into the earth's surface with high-pressure mixture of sand, water, and chemicals to release natural gas and oil from rock formations. 1.2 million to 2.5 tons of methane is moved from underground pipelines and flaring (into the atmosphere), liquefied, loaded and shipped – much of it to ally and enemy countries that have banned fracking, only to outsource it from the United States. This dependence on methane and the consumption of single-used plastics (99% of plastics are made from fossil fuels) allows industry titans such as Formosa to follow close behind in their own developmental boom, wherein-by their ceaseless production generates massive amounts of debris littering our land, shorelines, and oceans.

The process once broken down seems straight-forward enough until Fonda meets with methane hunters Sharon Wilson and Miguel Escoto in Pecos, Texas to show the extent of how these production sites commonly operate without regulations, leading to overproduction and racking up countless environmental violations. This meeting between Fonda and activists is the first of many as it becomes clearer how thousands of these plants are primarily responsible for "sacrifice zones", where locals face air and water pollution, economic devastation, and wildlife destruction. 

A common thread weaves throughout the documentary the at-risk rates of low-income families, Black communities, tribal and first nations, and Latinx communities to be the targets of these "sacrifice zones".  The corporate "promises of economic booms" come in the form of segregating generations of families from their homes, companies buying off their land, and essentially allowing them to become sick and die. For every town LNGs fails to overrun, it soon encroaches on all the land and people around it, trying to squeeze out the last residents willing to take a stand.

As the cinematography scans the horizon and home-fronts across Texas to Louisiana, you encounter nothing oil rigs deadening the crops they sit on, surrounded by lush yet abandoned green fields; plastics and petrol production sites engulfing the horizon where local towns, woodlands, swamps, and beaches were once enjoyed; blue skies masking the invisible methane carried out by the wind. Throughout the documentary, the revelations of death and decay to both humanity and nature is more than heartbreaking. At times, it instills a deep helplessness, making one stop and wonder what can be done given this kind of destruction hasn't stopped yet.

Where playgrounds once brought communities together, and generations of Black families lived in Corpus Christie and numerous parishes throughout the deep south, now stands abandoned swing sets and empty grass-filled lots, and the survivors fighting against petrol chemical plants trying to buy the last of their estate and families around them diagnosed with respiratory issues and cancer.

Where Cameron Parrish fishermen used to find a little peace called paradise in Isle De Jean Charles, Louisiana, and they're now displaced by increasingly violent hurricanes and uprooted to Texas, holding onto what's left of their livelihoods that are once again being threatened by other LNGs.

Where the air is unfit to breathe making Fonda and her guests eyes and lungs burn, and entire towns become known as Cancer Ally, historians Jo and Joy Banner of The Descendants Project hold tight to purchasing and converting plantations into historical landmarks to prevent their land from becoming a sacrifice zone.

Where the Mississippi River used to flow freely before the levees were built, the coastal zones from offshore drilling now begin to sink as the oceans rise and the saltwater erodes the freshwater, leaving miles of beaches and wetlands covered in sludge.  

Even though the number of deaths and dollar signs add up, so does the number of voices gathering to speak up. Director Katie Camosy gives each interviewee the space to show how climate change is all-encompassing; pollution does not act merely on the basis of air, or water, or land, or this coast or that coast, but an interconnected network of places and people. Many of the featured activists could be the subject of their own documentary, but the way their stories are told, on their own and highlighted by Fonda, deeply digs into the layers of climate change as a multi-layered issue with horrifying consequences. 

The answer of solving climate change is not that it has been solved, but how. As the protesters we've been introduced to rally throughout the French Quarter in New Orleans, you begin to see what Fonda said almost fifty years ago still rings true - the cultural divide of people who may not agree with each other on some fronts have no choice but to unite; what impacts one of them, impacts everyone. Fighting for climate change comes with many faces, political beliefs and backgrounds – it's found in shrimpers, former oil workers, ranchers, faith communities, and community organizers. It comes from suing companies and holding them accountable; hunting down and taking measurements of methane and filing endless reports even if they go unheard; hunger strikes; honoring indigenous tribes and buying land back; giving toxic tours; speaking the truth. GASLIT makes the case that environmental justice is not easy - the losses are constant, the wins are rare, and the challenges for too many are an everyday act of survival. To meet the threat of climate change is to also meet the people and listen to their stories, and not let yourself be gaslit from taking action. Visit the official website for more information.

Rating: ★★★★★ 

Note: GASLIT is now on Prime to rent/buy and will be launching on Documentary+ on October 28th. This review is provided with the availability of a screener. All opinions are my own, and all 3rd party links included in this review were not sponsored.