July 8, 2009: Super Size Me
I’ve been looking forward to writing this review, because I want to bring the excitement of Super Size Me (2004) to people who haven’t yet encountered it. I struggle, as noted in past reviews, to figure out what I want out of a documentary, and it’s clear that some of the approaches which result in a quality documentary don’t particularly appeal to me. Super Size Me takes an approach which particularly does. Is it a quality documentary? I don’t know.
This film presents independent filmmaker Morgan Spurlock undergoing an experiment to see what will happen if he eats nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days. This simple premise is packed with opportunities to provide charts and statistics both harrowing and silly about the health of Americans in general, along with personal-interest stories about the history and lore surrounding the McDonald’s brand, anchored and driven by the individual’s experience as Spurlock deals with doctors, corporations and his girlfriend during this attempt to make a movie while deliberately making himself acutely and perhaps chronically sick. Spurlock’s vegan chef girlfriend Alex is mortified by the mere idea of the project but supports him regardless, and Morgan’s repeated attempts to speak on the record with the McDonald’s corporation expose the big-corporate slipperiness often found in this day and age when dealing with companies which know they are contributing to people’s declining health.
This was my third viewing of Super Size Me, and I get a grin on my face every time. It makes me realize that I like a significant chunk of entertainment in my documentaries. If I wanted lots of stats and facts, I could get them in greater concentration and with greater context in a book. Quirky personal stories don’t necessarily do anything for me unless there’s an entertainment factor, such as the brief profile of Don Gorske, a man who has eaten over 23,000 Big Macs since he discovered them in 1972. But Spurlock keeps us on the edge of our seats with his weekly check-ins with two doctors and a nutritionist, as they see his health decline far more than they could ever have imagined, and he gains upwards of 20 pounds in less than a month. At one point, one of his doctors, astounded by Spurlock’s cholesterol levels, implores him to at least take some aspirin every day to thin his blood. When Spurlock says he doesn’t think McDonald’s sells aspirin and therefore he won’t do it, that captures the documentarian’s passion, the typical entertainment factor found in today’s documentaries, and also the stark reality of bringing information about people’s real lives and experiences to the viewers.
I have to “heart”ily recommend Super Size Me. It’s a little graphic and gross here and there, but otherwise good fun and maybe a bit of a wake-up call for those who need to see an extreme example in order to get a point across. The film hasn’t stopped me from eating at McDonald’s, and anyone who thinks about it for a moment would realize that eating nothing but McDonald’s food for 30 days is probably very unhealthy, but Morgan Spurlock takes us on a wild, informative and entertaining ride to make his point.
Crackling documentary makes the obvious entertaining.
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