Indie Film: Eastport among the small towns profiled in uplifting HBO documentary Our Towns, based on a book, is streaming on HBO Max.
By Dennis Perkins
HBO Max
“How does a town like this keep coming up with new ways to create a future for itself,” ask journalists and authors James and Deborah Fallows concerning the small Washington County city of Eastport. After all, they add, “It’s not like Downeast Mainers are famous for their optimism.”
Something of a burn there, but the Fallows’ overall glowing assessment of Eastport’s resilience makes up a good part of the 2021 documentary “Our Towns,” which is currently garnering praise on HBO Max, so I guess we Mainers will, begrudgingly, have to allow it. In fact, “Our Towns” holds up Eastport’s recent and ongoing reinvigoration as something of a model for all of America, so that’s not a bad thing, as the film posits a ground-up approach to revitalizing a beleaguered nation modeled on six municipal success s