A deeply unappetizing experience – sort of like downing three Big Macs at one sitting – but at least it’s more nutritious. Based on Eric Schlosser’s nonfiction expose and directed by Richard Linklater, this takes us on a fictional tour behind the scenes of the business, from the illegal immigrants recruited to work in dangerous meatpacking plants to the minimum-wage workers who toil at burger joints. At every level, inhumanity reigns. Fast Food Nation can be strident and didactic, but it’s also necessary. This may be the only way to get an instant-gratification society such as ours to consider the costs of eating fast and cheap.
