As you would expect from Dr. Seuss, The Lorax is full of lessons. The movie is about the perfect town, Thneedville, a town made of plastic, even the trees are plastic, much to the dismay of Audrey, a high school girl voiced by Taylor Swift. The main character, Ted, is quite taken with Audrey and sets out on a quest to get her a tree, a real, live, growing tree.
To find the trees, Ted must first discover what happened to them and for this he must go outside of town to find the Once-ler. Outside of Sneedville is gray and polluted and nothing grows.
The Once-ler tells Ted the story of how his greed caused the demise of all the Truffula. The Lorax tried to stop the Once-ler, telling him a tree falls the way it leans so be careful how you lean. Sadly, the Once-ler didn’t listen, he was caught up in greed and pleasing his mother. The Lorax tells the Once-ler that he is bad and the Once-ler sings how bad can I be, I’m only doing what comes naturally. He is unable to see how what is good for him is bad for the world.
Finally all the trees were gone, so were the animals, the Once-ler’s buisness and his mother.
As Ted is discovering what happened to the trees the most powerful man in Thneedville is trying to stop him. Mr. O’Hare became rich and powerful selling air. After the trees were gone there wasn’t any fresh air to breathe so once again, greed took over.
Ted manages to get the very last Truffula seed and must find a way to plant it in a town made of plastic. Fortunately he has his Grammy on his side, voiced by the wonderful Betty White.
There are wonderful lessons in this movie, the best being that one person, who cares enough can make a difference. This movie was fun to watch, very colorful and kept the three year old who accompanied me entertained the entire time.
In the words of Dr. Seuss:
Unless someone like you cares a whole, awful lot,
Nothing is going to get better, it’s not.