I'd heard, jokingly, that The Founder was a remake of the Social Network, but instead of Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg, it's Ray Kroc and McDonald's. By all accounts, this should have been a captivating movie starring Michael Keaton who seems to be getting better with age.
The Founder never really commits to a clear picture of who the McDonald brothers were, nor who was Ray Kroc. The McDonald brothers are certainly somewhere on the autism spectrum. What other personality type would have wanted to or could have invented fast food? Their quirkiness is bemusing and not much else. We instead see more glimpses into Ray Kroc, who might be a psychopath, a salesman who knows McDonald's could spread across the globe. He emerges from a vapid life into one of billions, becoming a ruthless monster who refuses to let anyone stand in the way of his vision. He even employs selective memory and conveniently overlooks all the hard work it took to establish the Speedee system, all the exploited labor that served the billions.
The biggest question left open is whether Ray Kroc was a psychopath before, or after, he became rich and powerful. The movie ignores pretty much every social aspect of commodity consumption and capitalizing on other people's work. What we are left with is about as satisfying as a Filet-O-Fish.
The Founder never really commits to a clear picture of who the McDonald brothers were, nor who was Ray Kroc. The McDonald brothers are certainly somewhere on the autism spectrum. What other personality type would have wanted to or could have invented fast food? Their quirkiness is bemusing and not much else. We instead see more glimpses into Ray Kroc, who might be a psychopath, a salesman who knows McDonald's could spread across the globe. He emerges from a vapid life into one of billions, becoming a ruthless monster who refuses to let anyone stand in the way of his vision. He even employs selective memory and conveniently overlooks all the hard work it took to establish the Speedee system, all the exploited labor that served the billions.
The biggest question left open is whether Ray Kroc was a psychopath before, or after, he became rich and powerful. The movie ignores pretty much every social aspect of commodity consumption and capitalizing on other people's work. What we are left with is about as satisfying as a Filet-O-Fish.