The documentary is about how might your life be better with less. In the documentary, the two main characters Joshua Fields Millburn and Ryan Nicodemus (the minimalists). The movie follows Joshua and Ryan as they crossed the country a couple years ago promoting their book “All That Remains.” In between the trip there are interviews with the two men about how they went from stressed out, consumer-crazed corporate businessmen to hug giving minimalists who live only of the important things and don’t consume too much.

The impact that the documentary is trying to make is that people buy too much. Consumptionism is a big problem but we don’t see it or don’t want to see it. Our generation buys so much clothes, toys, gadgets and so on that we think it is normal to buy. If you really think about it, you don’t need 20 different t-shirts in your closet.

In the documentary they discuss topics like:

• Quality purchases vs. Quantity purchases
• Physical items vs. Digital content
• Sacrifice- Give up something for something greater
• Consumerism vs. Minimalism - A middle ground?
• More specific marketing methods - Circumvent marketing to parents, now marketing straight to kids (McDonald's Happy Meals, Gendered toys action figures/dolls)
• Once luxuries crept towards necessity today
• "Safety stock" for important items? Replacement shirt if it rips, extra cups for potential guests, extra batteries, etc.
• Tiny Houses movement
• Tiny people - teaching children the important of frugality

If you are interested in these topics or want to see another way of life the documentary is highly recommended. It’s not just opinions about how you should live but also facts about the environmental impact of consumption and how we should all learn to live with less. And that right there is important to us all.

Sources:
http://www.theminimalists.com/
The minimalists documentary (available on Netflix)