The Meat of the Matter

Richard Linklater maps out his Fast Food Nation

Comments (0) By Nick Bradshaw Wednesday, Nov 8 2006

Still, it’s a good bet that Linklater’s conception of “fitting a role” takes in the full persona of a given actor: Kristofferson, for instance, plays a last-of-breed independent rancher, while corn-fed Willis — the ex-face of Planet Hollywood as well as an underrated character actor — provides the voice of meat-industry pragmatism, decrying how America has become full of “great big fraidy cats” who’ve gotta grow up: “Just cook the meat and you’ll be fine.”

A similar approach seemed to be at work in the casting of A Scanner Darkly, Linklater’s recent animated adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s drug-freak elegy, with Keanu Reeves losing his grip on reality as Woody Harrelson and Robert Downey Jr. popped pills beside him. That film now forms an interesting companion piece to Fast Food Nation, describing the Southern California roots of the fake plastic culture — from burgers to bodies, tract homes to Mickey Mouse — that has swept across America and the world.

inklater (right) with Kinnear in the heart of cow country (Photo by Matt Lankes)

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“Southern California’s always been a petri dish for lots of modern developments,” Linklater concurs. “The book [of Fast Food Nation] makes clear how the growth of the highway system and the death of mass transit worked in tandem with the development of fast-food culture. And stoner culture certainly grew out of there, not to mention all these weird political propositions that then roll out across the nation.”

Fast Food Nation opens Friday, November 17, in Los Angeles theaters.