Title: Fast Food Nation
Cast: Greg Kinnear, Catalina Moreno, Ashley Johnson, …
Genre: Drama
Director: Richard Linklater
Release: (2006)
Well, that about does it. I guess this is how I die: naked and alone, starving to death in the dark. Thanks, Hollywood, way to do your part. Maybe I’m just going crazy from lack of sustenance and human contact, but I could have sworn there was a time when “your part” was to be a distraction from all of the serious problems of the world. And yet here you are again acting as a magnifying glass for them instead.
First there was An Inconvenient Truth. “No problem,” I said, “looks like we’ll all just have to start making a few sacrifices here and there.” And so I began learning to live with fewer and fewer lights on in the house, until finally there were none. Then came The Corporation. “Ok …”, I said, “well, I wouldn’t want to think that any of the clothes I’m wearing might have been made by eleven-year old Malaysian sweatshop slaves. Sooo…” And so I began learning to live with fewer and fewer articles of clothing on, until finally I just wore none. At first my girlfriend was a little concerned about the decisions I was making to become a better citizen of the world, but she decided that as long as we were going to be together forever, she would learn to live with these sacrifices for me. Almost immediately after which, I saw Blood Diamond. Well I tried to explain to her that we could still be together forever, but that I just couldn’t risk contributing to further funding the tribal genocides being waged by despotic paramilitary regimes that are being implicitly underwritten by greedy United States and European diamond importers. Is that what she wanted me to do?
Apparently that’s what she wanted me to do. So, with the prospect of a big, shiny ring no longer in our future, I began learning to live with fewer and fewer girlfriend visits, until finally there were none. “Great movements require great sacrifices,” I thought to myself, “if changing the world in all the ways that Hollywood tells me to requires this of me, I shall bear the load.” And then I saw Fast Food Nation. “Oh, come on! Come ON! What the hell, man? Now I can’t even eat anymore? EAT? I can’t even eat? Oh, f#&* you, man, f#&* YOU!”, I said nakedly to no one, “I got no clothes, no lights, my girlfriend ran off with a freaking DUI lawyer, and now I can’t even EAT! Oh, this is bulls#&*.”
The reason I couldn’t eat anymore is because of the nauseating imagery that director Richard Linklater and his merry band of rich-guilt, do-gooder messengers decided to tough-love us all with in this very loose, dramatic adaptation of Eric Schlosser’s 2001 bestseller of the same name. (Note to high school English teachers everywhere: now that’s a busy sentence. Feel free to use it in your lesson plans, as it is much easier for me to add this superfluous offer than to go back and edit it.) Linklater’s adaptation follows a handful of functionally designed characters as they weave a number of loosely interrelated narrative strands in and out and alongside of each other throughout the film. Rather than try to pick any one strand out as the main plot line, as arguments can be made for any of them equally, I’ll try instead to just take a look at some of the main characters and why they were needed.
First of all I should backtrack a little, for anyone not familiar with Schlosser’s book or this film’s focus, and say that all of the characters were employed for one main reason – to take a look behind the curtain at the alarming production and insidious marketing of fast food in American culture. To get at each level of an issue of such wide scope, Linklater decided to use a number of characters whose daily routines would permit them access to all levels of the machine. So, at the top, we meet corporate exec Don Anderson, played very gregkinnearishly by Greg Kinnear. Anderson’s story gives us access to the corporate greed and board room politicking that we now know every executive of every company with a building over three stories tall is always secretly driven by. At the middle management level, we meet Harry Rydell (Bruce Willis), a Colonel Jessep type of field general who knows how to keep everyone happy as long as no one asks any questions. At the restaurant level we get a number of perspectives, including that of local manager (Esai Morales), cashier (Ashley Johnson) and cook (Paul Dano). And even back one step further we learn where the food first comes from through the eyes of a number of immigrant workers (Wilmer Valderrama, Catalina Moreno, Ana Claudia Talancón) who find themselves working in all of the most slaughtery rooms of the slaughterhouse.
Each of these characters has, at least nominally, their own backstory and narrative thread to be explored. Unfortunately none of them really pan out, and are basically just flimsy excuses for moving the characters into various positions to allow Linklater to illustrate the parallel horrors of the slaughterhouse and board room. (If this sounds familiar, it’s basically the food version of Thank You for Smoking) I’ll tell you right now, don’t get too invested in the Kinnear character’s storyline because, despite the seemingly central role it’s given, there comes a point later in the movie where it just disappears never to be heard from again. I’ll also tell you right now, don’t get too invested in eating food. While its focus is purportedly on the fast food industry alone, I really don’t see how you could not think of this movie any time you try to eat processed food of any kind in the near future after seeing it. I’m only on Day 4 and I’ve already run out of enough options to consider buying one of those NASA water filtration units that lets astronauts drink their own pee.
THEN WILL I BE GOOD ENOUGH FOR YOU, HOLLYWOOD!?! WILL I??
Grading
Story: Which one?
Acting: B
Visuals: A for effectiveness, F for enjoyability
Originality/Innovation:
Enjoyability: D
Overall: C-
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