“6/11/2009, 3:22pm EST”
I wager this movie won’t spend nearly enough time on the suffering of non-human animals. I get it — most Americans psychologically need to hear about how it affects them, without looking themselves in the mirror — equal parts pathetic and predictable. But Food Inc. apparently does a pretty good job with that limited discussion. As New York Magazine film critic David Edelstein puts it:
It’s the documentary equivalent of The Matrix: It shows us how we’re living in a simulacrum, fed by machines run by larger machines with names like Monsanto, Perdue, Tyson, and the handful of other corporations that make everything.
I was sorely disappointed by Fast Food Nation, which failed because it tried to squeeze the evils of the food industry into a hackneyed plot with weak characters. Meanwhile, the views of the animal welfare movement were either ignored or misrepresented. Hopefully this film is better.
Food Inc. opens this Friday in limited release.
Never leave home without it.
