Colin Beavan, a writer researching his next book, decides in November 2006 to spend a year producing as close to zero environmental impact as possible, and cameras follow him into it. The rules are strict: no elevators or subways, no electricity, no food grown more than 250 miles away, no new purchases of anything. His wife Michelle, a Business Week reporter who runs on espresso and shopping, did not sign up for this the way Colin did, and the film gets its real tension from watching her adjust, resist, and occasionally rebel, with their two-year-old daughter caught in the middle. Directed by Laura Gabbert and Justin Schein, the documentary shows the practical absurdities of the experiment alongside its costs: cold food, candlelit apartments, a family negotiating in real time over what they're willing to give up. It doesn't resolve into a clean verdict on whether the year worked. It mostly stays close to one Manhattan household figuring out where their principles bend and where they don't.