Director Tom McCarthy brings Nathaniel Rich’s 2019 book Losing Earth: A Recent History to the screen in A Statement, a verbatim docu-drama chronicling a 1980 Florida conference where experts debated climate change days before Ronald Reagan’s election. The film premiered at the New York Film Festival on October 3, 2026, starring Paul Rudd, Paul Giamatti, and Evan Peters.
The Bottom Line on McCarthy’s Verbatim Experiment
- A Statement recreates 36 hours of historical debate in a St. Petersburg hotel room using word-for-word transcripts recorded by a stenographer.
- The cast features Paul Rudd as conference moderator Tom Jorling alongside Paul Giamatti, Evan Peters, John Turturro, and Amy Ryan.
- Critics note its theatrical feel, while some draw comparisons to other contemporary climate films.
Inside the 1980 St. Petersburg Conference Room
In late October 1980, just days before the election of Ronald Reagan, Congress assembled 20 experts at the pink beachfront Don CeSar Hotel in St. Petersburg, Florida. Their mandate was to evaluate the threat of fossil fuel emissions and deliver a cohesive statement back to Congress. Every single word of the four marathon sessions over 36 hours was recorded by a stenographer, yielding a document hundreds of pages long.
Writer-director Tom McCarthy, alongside co-writers Noé Debré and Thomas Bidegain, adapted a brief chapter from Nathaniel Rich’s book Losing Earth: A Recent History. Unlike Regina King’s One Night in Miami, which relied on a largely fictionalized play, McCarthy’s screenplay incorporates literal transcripts for the debates held inside the hotel conference room. Roughly half of the 104-minute runtime is pulled verbatim from the original stenographer records.
Character Dynamics and Ensemble Standouts
The film keeps its principal cast confined to a single room as they argue semantics, policy, and research methodologies. The narrative unfolds with zero traditional backstories for the participants, immediately dropping viewers into the procedural mechanics of the event.
Paul Rudd stars as conference moderator Tom Jorling, tasked with keeping the room productive while managing headstrong personalities. Evan Peters plays Rafe Pomerance, an engaged activist with Friends of the Earth. Paul Giamatti plays David Slade, the cynical director of the Energy Department’s Office of Carbon Dioxide Effects, while John Turturro injects humor as MIT nuclear engineer Dr. David Rose.
| Actor | Character | Real-World Role / Affiliation |
|---|---|---|
| Paul Rudd | Tom Jorling | Conference Moderator / Williams College Professor |
| Evan Peters | Rafe Pomerance | Activist with Friends of the Earth |
| Paul Giamatti | Dr. David Slade | Director of the Energy Department’s Office of Carbon Dioxide Effects |
| John Turturro | Dr. David Rose | MIT Nuclear Engineer |
Critical Reception and Divergent Perspectives
Critical reception at the New York Film Festival split across stylistic lines. The film has been described as “talky but stimulating and incisively acted,” with some noting that McCarthy successfully translates wonkish policy debate into compelling cinema, offering an entertaining look at an era when civil discourse on hot-button topics was still viable.
Conversely, other assessments categorized the film as a preachy and humorless climate drama that relies on static head-on shots and semantics-heavy arguments. Despite the friction regarding its cinematic momentum, reviewers commended the ensemble’s collective technical precision.
It is an entertaining, sly, humorous, enlightening, and even moving story of an effort by a group of mere human beings trying to come together for the good of the planet and deliver a simple statement on how to save us from ourselves.
