Independent Lens

As Goes Janesville

From the day the GM factory closes through a showdown with national resonance at the state capitol, "As Goes Janesville" traces the impact of the economic crisis on the people of Janesville, Wisconsin. The film records two years in the lives of laid-off workers, business leaders and elected officials all trying to reinvent their lives and their midwestern town amid the closure of their GM plant and America's worst economic crisis since the Great Depression. The story begins shortly after the factory closed in 2008 and continues through a standoff between the newly-elected governor and 14 Democratic state senators, one of whom is a main character in the film.