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Most of this material is pretty light in and out of context, but the movie is not averse to visceral effect. When it comes time to visit Norway and Germany, the blunt instrument comes into play and we are given a stark visual reminder of the very different way in which a democratic country faces imprisonment and criminal history. A focus on criminal rehabilitation in Norway, complete with maximum security prisons that are built around health, furthering education, and abstinence from prisoner and guard abuse are contrasted sharply with horrifying video of domestic prisoners being subjected to physical abuse by guard and by animal. In Germany, we learn that every grade-school student is educated in the minutiae of the Holocaust; they are reminded of the crimes their forebears have committed, and they own it as part of their national identity. The contrasts drawn here, between Germany’s clear-eyed view of history and our tendency to sanitize our educational material - remember how slaves became workers last fall in that high-school geography textbook? - are striking, moving, and humiliating.

These moments play to the movie’s strongest narrative throughline, eloquently verbalized by a police officer in Portugal, where drug use has been decriminalized to the result of lower incidences of drug-related crime, and I slightly paraphrase: “The backbone of our society is the preservation of human dignity.” The varying threads of Moore’s documentary are all ultimately traceable back to that universal ethic, and it’s inarguable. Where to Invade Next isn’t always on footing that strong, though. At various points during the documentary, particularly segments focusing on education in Slovenia and Norway, he engages in a familiar tactic of leading his subject: applying current United States sensibility to daily European life, as a method of illustrating discrepancy and differences in perception between us and European citizens. It’s not exactly a dishonorable tactic to use, but it’s a shallow one, and it makes an already-solid concept seem flimsier than it really is.

Elsewhere, Moore employs less-defensible tactics: juxtaposing archival and historic footage of American traditions and practices (by way of Reagan, newsreel footage, old educational films, et cetera) with modern-day video clips of interviews with European school principals, heads of state, presidents, etc. The goal, I imagine, is to contrast flawed idealism with reliable pragmatism, but the weakness here is fairly obvious: we’re seeing outdated material expected to compete against updated and current material. It’s like trying to illustrate how Mac is better than Windows, by comparing El Capitan to Windows 95. There are already plenty of fairer ways to illustrate why Mac is the better operating system; you don’t need to handicap things even more.

Much of the ethic that’s talked about in the modern-day clips with European participants is being debated and examined by us now: universal healthcare, debt-free or no-cost higher education, rehabilitation, school nutrition. Some of these, in fact, are direct targets of this year’s Presidential candidates - and to a degree, different people will take different lessons away from this documentary. One of the more consistent aspects of the discrepancy between America and Europe that Where to Invade Next explores either unknowingly or extremely stealthily is the difference in cultural temperament, and how one social right applied in one country may not be able to take quite the same shape in another country. The x-factor, Where to Invade Next implies, is in the population. The European leaders understand what America does and does not share in common with their nations, but it’s the individual citizens on-camera who are most surprised to hear that maternity leave, comprehensive healthcare, and higher-quality food for our students aren’t necessarily part of the bargain. Documentaries like this are important as an incitement to progress, to start thinking in a way that allows us to take the first step.

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