Michael Moore's incredible, "Where to Invade Next" win will almost certainly spook his detractors on Fox News and similar sinkholes. They get a lot of distance from painting Moore as a left-wing provocateur who is all about "destroying America." But his new film is about building America, in an incredibly new and thought-provoking way. In my view, this is one of the most sincere and worthy patriotic films an American has ever made.

It came not as a documentary but a comedy, and the first joke was its misleading title. You think it anticipates strong, leftist criticism of American foreign policy. Instead, Moore told us that the Joint Chiefs of Staff invited him to Washington, DC, to admit that all their wars since the “big one” had been a disaster and to seek his advice. He responded by offering himself as a one-man army who would “invade the countries inhabited by Caucasians whose names I speak most often, take the things we need from them, and bring them back to the United States. ”

So, wearing his trademark baseball cap and completely draped in the flag, he set out across the Atlantic looking for people to conquer who had the goods America needed. Yes, he knows all these countries have their own problems. But he came, he said, “to pick flowers, not weeds. And what a beautiful wreath he collected.

The first stop was Italy, where she wondered why “Italians always look like they just had sex. He found some of the reasons for that glow in talking to a couple in their 30s—he's a cop, he works for a clothing company—who started counting all the paid vacation time they got. The base portion, defined by law, is four weeks, but when you add government holidays and such, it's close to eight. They spend all this time vacationing in places like Miami and Zanzibar, so there's more than just sex (although we think there's plenty of that too) to explain their bright tans and smug smiles.

Upon hearing about this citizen-paid five-month maternity leave, Moore stormed two Italian companies—one of which makes the famous Ducati motorcycles—where he expressed disbelief that such a gift could be good for business. But the CEOs of both companies amiably argued that it was. Workers who get those benefits—and are allowed a two-hour lunch where they can enjoy home-cooked meals—make a healthier, happier and more productive workforce, they say. A trade union representative noted that this achievement was hard-earned and still requires struggle. But the picture of the industry situation where everyone seemed to define success as teamwork, health, and la dolce vita led Moore to plant Stars and Stripes on one factory floor, claiming the idea for the US.

Before considering the other countries he visited, it is worth noting that all of this worked out well not only because of the ideas presented but also because Moore was an accomplished comic storyteller and skilled polemicist. This film has a very definite point of view, of course; that's what sets it apart from the bland pseudo-objectivity of our corporate news media. But Moore was smart enough to avoid preaching to the chorus by also voicing the doubts and skepticism Americans would have of any other political persuasion.

After Italy, several episodes focus on different aspects of education. In France, he visits a provincial elementary school where students' hour-long lunches look like they came from a top Parisian restaurant; it's not only cheaper than the bullshit given to American children, the chef said, it's also educational because it teaches about food and healthy eating. In Finland, one of the film's most shocking segments, Moore learns that until a few decades ago, students performed almost as well as crippled Americans. Then Finland decided to revolutionize their education system. Reforms included eliminating homework and standardized tests and giving students more autonomy and free time. The result: Finland is now number one in the education rankings.

In Slovenia, Moore examines a system in which college education is essentially free, even for Americans who began flocking there, unable to afford the exorbitant fees at home. In Germany, filmmakers' views on health care and benefits for middle-class citizens are part of the film that is most likely to attract the ire of the American right, as it concerns how not only education but public policy in the general decree remembers and understands the Holocaust. Moore says he comes from "a great nation born into genocide and built on slave backs," and wonders if such historical confessions might actually be of benefit to the US as well.