The Isle de Jean Charles is a place in Louisiana where each year rising sea levels and coastal erosion is seeing more and more of the island lost to the water. The film looks at two residences who still live there, even as the town and the very land itself leaves them behind. In doing this, the film manages to create a nice air of desolation; the empty properties, the gradual loss of the land and, in some way, a threat of a loss of self too. This theme is what makes the short film work where it does, and it is a shame that it is not something it pushed more.
The idea of the two men not leaving but yet accepting the loss of what they have always known is well presented but is too softly done and other things, more common things, tend to edge it out. Specifically this is the fact that the image of washed out homes in southern USA, and the usual parade of people saying 'I lived in this house and I'll die in this house' and so on, well all of this is sadly very familiar and as a result this film often feels like it has little new to say. And it doesn't because the interviews don't really probe but instead leave it to the camera and music to get some good atmosphere and shots.
The short running time means we have no time for the science or more detail either, so again another reason why to drive into that thread of land/identity and drag it out would have made a better film. The mood and the tone still works, and it is professionally made, but it is just a shame that outside of a few aspects, it does feel very much like we have heard this story and seen these people many a time before, albeit in a slightly different context.