The Founder (2016)

There’s a moment in The Founder when Michael Keaton preemptively apologizes for blasphemy before comparing McDonald’s to American institutions of church and state – crosses, flags, and golden arches. It’s a peculiar but apt metaphor, playing it far less safe than lumping burgers in with baseball and apple pie, but The Founder isn’t a biopic that plays it safe. It’s brisk and taut, slick as its salesman protagonist, but it’s also sobered and smartly self-aware. If nothing else, Keaton gives a must-see performance.

Michael Keaton stars as Ray Kroc, the ostensible (read: self-proclaimed) founder of McDonald’s, whose golden-arched fast food peppers the global landscape to this day. (Indeed, Thomas L. Friedman once noted the synchronicity between the end of global conflict and the prevalence of McDonald’s across nations.) The film is resolute in its depiction of Kroc as an opportunist driven by the brass ring he sees in the form of a franchised version of the burger stand built by Dick and Mac McDonald (Nick Offerman & John Carroll Lynch).

Maybe it’s the score by Carter Burwell, a frequent Coen Brothers collaborator, but this really felt like a Coen version of There Will Be Blood, a capitalist morality play set amid the playfully absurd backdrop of a burger joint. But unlike There Will Be Blood (which took itself deadly seriously, despite staging its climactic murder in a basement bowling alley) or a Coen product (which is always already silly), The Founder conducts itself with a knowing wink, aware of the moral/economic paradox it presents. McDonald’s feeds 1% of the world’s population each day, closing text declares, but Ray Kroc had to circumvent, then buy out, two innocuous restaurateurs to do it.

Yet, thankfully, The Founder does not stoop to preach against the big bad capitalist who bilked two well-intentioned yokels. There’s no scene where Kroc wrings his hands and soul before the camera and wails plaintively at what his schemes have cost him. Instead, Kroc is presented as hungry, driven, and shrewd, willing to breach contract for the sake of his vision – but, as the film notes, only when the other party of the contract lacks vision and willfully obstructs progress.

Kroc is presented, then, as a man who is entirely honest – perhaps not wholly in matters of business but always honest to and about himself. Keaton gives a master class in antiheroism; his Kroc is perpetually transparent about his motivations, his desires, and his intentions, and the film frequently poses the question of who’s at fault when one allows a wolf into a henhouse. Keaton is wolfish as Kroc, with that lean and hungry look with which Shakespeare fixed “yon Cassius” in Julius Caesar; his impish winks and raised eyebrows speak volumes in unflinching close-ups that revel in the character lines on his face. Closing archival footage reveals that Keaton has nailed down many of Kroc’s mannerisms and the unique cadence of his voice, a kind of nasal gravel that gives one the impression of a perpetually dynamic grinder. Keaton appears noir-style in nearly every scene, showing that same command of an audience’s attention that he displayed in Birdman, Spotlight, and yes, even The Other Guys.

It’s Keaton’s show, but Offerman and Lynch do yeoman’s work as the uncomplicated McDonalds who don’t much care for franchises or even a bankroll beyond what their modest location provides. There’s real pathos in Lynch’s face, while Offerman provides the vehement protests to Kroc’s plans, and the two provide a strong counterpoint to Keaton’s manic energy. They both have the look of someone straight out of 1954, but they have the chops to hold their own opposite Keaton.

In the film’s closing moments, Keaton gives the camera a short monologue and a look that communicates more than most actors pull off in an entire movie. I don’t want to spoil too much, but it’s a look that stops shy of rendering a moral judgment on the whole film. It’s a look that asks, “Have I done the right thing?” It’s a look that represents everything the audience will be thinking as the film concludes. The Founder closes on precisely the right note, weighing the gravity of the story and allowing its star one last moment to shine. Between Keaton, Denzel, and Andrew Garfield, it’s anyone’s game for Best Actor this year.

The Founder is rated PG-13 for “brief strong language.” Directed by John Lee Hancock. Written by Robert Siegel. Starring Michael Keaton, Nick Offerman, John Carroll Lynch, Linda Cardellini, B.J. Novak, Patrick Wilson, and Laura Dern.