Join or Die: A Documentary

Should you join a club? Robert Putnam says yes. He has spent half a century studying why it matters. The Emmy-nominated documentary Join or Die follows the legendary social scientist whose Bowling Alone book and research mapped America’s decades-long unraveling of civic life, and what it’s cost us in loneliness, trust, and connection. At a moment when the U.S. Surgeon General has named loneliness a public health epidemic, the film arrives as both diagnosis and call to action. Flanked by scholars, public health voices, and people actively rebuilding community in neighborhoods across the country, Putnam explores three questions worth sitting with: What makes democracy work? Why is it struggling? And what can we actually do about it?