Fast Food Nation the movie

Fast Food Nation, the book by Eric Schlosser was great and now the movie by Richard Linklater is brilliant. The director has been able to translate a book with a lot of facts and figures into a movie that is engaging and shocking.

The movie focuses on the meat packing industry and the fast food industry. The focus is on the work that people are often forced to do, for instance illegal workers from Mexico and poor whites working at Mickey’s franchise. The movie moves around a lot of stories. Don Anderson (Greg Kinnear), an executive at Mickey’s is sent to Cody, Colorado to verify information that Mickey’s burgers contain shit. Ashley Johnson as Amber, the high school student who after working at Mickey’s realizes that she needs to leave Mickey’s and Cody to fulfil her ambitions. Raul (Wilmer Valderrama) and Sylvia (Catalina Sandino Moreno), newly arrived immigrants from Mexico are trying to fulfill the basic American dream of earning money and having a good life. The stories of the exploitation at the plant are very well documented, women have to sleep with the supervisor to get a better position on the meat packing chain. All the characters in the movie are well developed, and their struggles and contradictions are brought out well.

My thanksgiving dinner is going to be meat free.

Here is a review from the New York Times