Review: Change is hard. ‘To the End’ documents a fearless foursome tackling the climate crisis

Rachel Lears’ documentary “Knock Down the House” was an election cycle snapshot of uncommon excitement, its four scrappy female primary challengers for U.S. Congress — including a then-unknown Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez — bringing infectious change-the-world energy to not only American politics in 2018, but the usually cut-and-dried genre of the follow-along campaign portrait. We first see AOC in “To the End” showing up at a Sunrise march on Nancy Pelosi’s office in November 2018 to give her public blessing to Prakash’s group’s action about climate change. It’s an ideal scene to exemplify the pivot from where Lears left us at the end of “Knock” — with the New York bartender-turned-representative set to become the most prominent figure of the new congressional class — to what “To the End” hopes to cover: what the effort looks like to use a newly powerful voice to address an important issue. Much of “To the End” is about methods of messaging and allying our subjects use — CNN commentating, rallies, conferences — to push politicians to first take the Green New Deal seriously, then to get Democratic presidential candidates to prioritize a sustainable future, and when Biden is in the White House, to make sure the climate parts of his Build Back Better legislation aren’t sabotaged.