‘The Issue With Tissue – A Boreal Love Story’ Review: Impassioned Environmental Documentary Takes Big TP to Task

variety.com:

Guy Lodge Film Critic More than one talking head in “The Issue With Tissue – A Boreal Love Story” uses the phrase “flushing away our forests,” to the point that it becomes a kind of aghast mantra for Michael Zelniker’s eco-documentary — tonally encapsulating its earnest exasperation with the world, or at least its human custodians.

One can forgive the repetition, since the image is so pointed: Every year, vast stretches of Canada’s richly biodiverse boreal forest region are razed for that most literally disposable of causes: the manufacture of toilet paper. “Is there a more obscene illustration for what’s gone wrong?” asks one Indigenous elder and activist for his native environment.

Perhaps, but it’d be hard to find a less dignified one. A veteran Canadian actor and indie film stalwart here making his first foray into nonfiction filmmaking, Zelniker frequently favours punchy rhetoric and sloganeering in a bid for broad audience appeal, down to the doc’s cute, catchy title: “The Issue With Tissue” effectively makes its point, albeit sometimes at the expense of more intricate analysis that might better sustain its two-hour running time.

As a feature-length PSA, however, it’s both plain-speaking and plainly felt, with a welcome prioritisation of First Nations perspectives — qualities that have already served it well at multiple environmental film festivals and in Canadian theaters.