2008 Woodie Awards
Fast Food adaptation is hardly a happy meal
Nick McCarthy
Issue date: 11/16/06 Section: Arts and Entertainment
- Page 1 of 2 next >
|
Even if you are unaware of this common belief, it will be drilled into you at every angle, thinly disguised under a layer of interweaved narratives, during Richard Linklater's artlessly preachy Fast Food Nation.
The title may sound familiar, since the film is a very loose adaptation of Eric Schlosser's meticulous, well-researched nonfiction exposé of the same name.
Before the screening The Beacon attended, Linklater, co-writing with Schlosser, warned fans of the muckraking bestseller that the film is not faithful to its source material. Instead, the filmmakers decided to weave a fictionalized mosaic, including a plethora of characters from three intertwining storylines that revolve around some aspect of the fast-food industry.
This caveat is unnecessary, however, due to the film's absurdly exaggerated presentation; it's impossible to mistake the adaptation as nonfiction. Linklater also preceded the showing with a preface, "I'll tell you what Fast Food Nation is not; it is not a documentary, a comedy or a satire."
Due to the film's penchant to overstate the obvious and embellish the supposed truth, though, it's difficult not to view it as a satirical farce.
Arriving in theatres a century after The Jungle, Upton Sinclair's opus on immigration and Chicago's meatpacking industry, Fast Food Nation-with its depiction of border-jumping Mexican factory workers, a complacent marketing executive (Greg Kinnear) and a na've teenage employee (Ashley Johnson, best known as little Chrissy Seaver from "Growing Pains")-similarly insists it's a jungle out there.
Fast Food Nation begins with familiarly colored yellow-and-red opening credits and then cuts to a dreamy sequence in a fast-food eatery known as Mickey's.
Mickey's is filled with happy families and youth baseball teams; the camera floats around until it reaches its destination: a "Big One," Mickey's featured burger. The camera closes up on the sandwich and lingers for a moment before "entering" it, David Lynch-style.
At this moment, the film ostensibly severs all ties from idealized fantasy and sets up its multiple narratives in a world Linklater describes as "very realistic." A gaggle of Mexicans (among them are Wilmer Valderrama and Maria Full of Grace's Catalina Sandino Moreno) navigate through the desert to sneak into America, and later as they ride their bikes down the highway, it is apparent that the land of opportunities is paved with chain restaurants.
Be the first to comment on this story