Food, Inc. (Friday, June 19, 2009) (67)

When I first saw the trailer for this film, I thought to myself, 'ugh, another bleeding-heart polemic film about how the food we eat sucks'. Basically, my first reaction was totally right. This is basically a film version of Michael Pollan's The Omnivore's Dilemma and Eric Schlosser's Fast Food Nation - both great books about how the food we eat sucks. Unfortunately, the film was not much better than either book and lacked a lot of the detail of each.

Divided into a handful of random sections, such as fast food, economics of growing plants and animals, the significant role of corn in processed foods and organic growing, the movie jumps around rather randomly and it's hard to follow any real linear direction. Considering how much it jumps around, I was annoyed that several points were omitted (namely the dramatic influence the agriculture and animal/protein lobbies have on elected officials in the form of campaign donations and the unfair labor practices and union busting that all processed food corporations engage in). Yes - the film worked ok without these points, but I felt several times like the story kissed these topics but then moved along past them without addressing them.

One small personal beef (haha! pun!) with the film - or mistake at any rate - was in a section talking about the rise in the rate of diabetes in America (due to all the sugars and processed corns we eat that causes obesity) there was a title that flashed onscreen that said something to the effect of '1 in 3 children born in the US after 2000 will become early onset diabetic'. This is just a mistake as I'm pretty sure they mean that 1 in 3 children will become an early late-onset diabetic or a late-onset diabetic early.... or get type-2 diabetes early... any way, it's a mistake.

I think the film make Pollan seem like an anti-corporate food nut, while I don't think that's actually what he is. I think he wants people to be aware of what they eat and where it comes from, but I don't think he's a foodsnob who would refuse to eat standard meet if faced with it. Sure he would prefer organic, locally grown food, but this made him seem like a bit of a food maniac. For Schlosser, this seemed to touch on some stuff in his book, however, after the fast food section, there was not a heck of a lot for him to do. After the first 20 minutes of the film, he only briefly came back once in awhile... a shame....

A frustrating thing was that near the end of the film, there was a line from Pollan saying something to the effect of how organic food costs more, but oh, well. I think that should have been the central point of (at least the second half of) the film. It is a terrible thing that cheap food is bad food and good food is unaffordable - but we can't dismiss this. Pollan should be advocating changing how we subsidize food producers and make locally grown food cheaper for the masses.

I think the filmmaking, by Robert Kenner, was ok overall, but not wonderful. Again, this was not much better than the two food books - even with some nice and somewhat silly animation details. I did object to a few interview set-ups where he had certain people in green fields (happy) and some in brown fields (sad) - this was manipulative and unfair, I think. It's his first feature and I look forward to seeing what's next from him.

Overall an ok film but not amazing. As a polemic, it's ok - but the ideas are so old and unoriginal that it's hard to really care about. I'd much rather an argument that really 'pushes the envelope' and make me think about food in a different way. This doesn't really do that....

Stars: 2 of 4