Super Size Me

The fourth highest-grossing documentary of all time, Morgan Spurlock's Super Size Me finds the agreeably ordinary twentysomething New Yorker--initially a perfectly healthy guy--eating exclusively at McDonald's for a month and suffering serious physical (and mental) consequences. Narrating his own story in a glib, amusing fashion against a backdrop of footage in which he chows down, visits with his increasingly horrified doctors and fitness counselors, argues with his vegan girlfriend, and tries without success to arrange an interview with a company representative, Spurlock also uses his experience as a springboard for a broader discussion of the obesity epidemic in America--delivering an indictment of the fast food industry as a whole (with information on the legal cases filed against franchises that sell fattening foods)--while also sharing data that demonstrates how switching to healthier foods can have a beneficial effect. Michael Moore's films obviously served as the template for Super Size Me, but Spurlock is less rumpled than his Michigan model, and though his subject is a serious one, his is not an angry film (as Moore's, for all their humor, definitely are). While there's a bit of smugness in Spurlock's closing revelation that McDonald's recently discontinued its super-sizing option, as a whole the film is an engaging, revealing, and policy-changing piece of social criticism that is definitely recommended [Note: a good complementary film is the British documentary McLibel: Two Worlds Collide (VL-7/04), concerning a legal case McDonald's brought against some English activists.] [Note: DVD extras include audio commentary by filmmaker Morgan Spurlock and his vegan chef girlfriend Alex Jamieson, four deleted scenes, six bonus interviews, and the five-minute mold experiment featurette “The Smoking Fry.” Bottom line: a fine set of extras for of 2004's most talked-about documentaries.] (F. Swietek)