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Let’s tackle The Founder first: it starts out as a Happy Commercial for McDonald’s, then careens into oncoming traffic, crashes into a ditch, and explodes, leaving black skid marks all over the road in its wake.
The film follows the story of down-on-his-luck (ain’t they all?) salesman Ray Kroc who's selling milkshake mixers in the idealized 1950’s. Or trying to. His travels often leave him eating in his car at roadside diners and burger joints, where the service is slow and the food equally meh.
Then, a ray of light: McDonalds calls and orders 8 of his milkshake mixers. Impossible! No one orders eight mixers. Kroc immediately sets off to see with his own eyes the magical restaurant that needs 8 mixers. When he gets there, Ray's stunned: no one comes out to his car to take his order. He has to get out (innovation!) and go up to the window on foot. Remember, this is revolutionary stuff: the 1950's were practically the Stone Age. Kroc orders and BAM his food is right there. I mean, BOOM: Food. Instantly. No delay. And what's more, no plates. No dishes. No cutlery.
Ray’s baffled by awesomeness.
This is the Temple Mount of American Fast Food. It couldn’t be more revelatory if crepuscular rays streaked out from between parting clouds and bathed Ray in light.
From there everything goes downhill spiritually as it goes up financially. Ray, it turns out, is not the paragon of entrepreneurial virtue we might have thought. Indeed, Ray’s an avaricious dick, the kind of guy who thinks Monopoly is a guide and not a warning.
The rest, as they say, is spoilers.
Worth also stars Michael Keaton, this time behind a Brooklyn accent and pair of spectacles. He plays a by-the-book star lawyer who takes on, pro bono, the seemingly thankless task of working out compensation for the victims of 9/11.
It's even more gnarly than you think.
This is the guy who has divvy out money to grieving relatives according to a financial compensation formula. Putting a dollar amount on someone’s life, anyones life, is problematic enough, but when the amounts are less for some than for others, people get... irked. Spouses of formerly high flying execs (sorry) get far more than the building janitors.
And there are all sorts of legal issues around same sex couples.
The whole thing is a nasty business, a moral and legal landmine that Keaton’s character cheerfully steps on. The rest of the picture is essentially about him trying to get off that landmine.
It’s a morbidly fascinating look behind the curtain of the legal aftermath of 9/11. Thankfully, there is a ‘happy’ ending of sorts (circumstances permitting: no one is coming back from the dead here).
Irena’s Vow follows a young Polish nurse from 1939 to 1945, as she tries to survive the horrific Nazi occupation. She’s initially fortunate in getting work as a server at a restaurant for Nazi officers. She’s then hired to be the housekeeper of a German Major’s house. Thanks to her job, she learns what the Nazis have planned for the jewish ‘tailors’ who had been working in the basement of the restaurant, and decides to intercede: she offers them a place to hide… in the Major’s house.
Talk about hiding under the nose of the enemy.
Sounds outlandish, right? Something a fiction writer would cook up. And to be honest, I kind of balked at it... but the film is actually based on a true story. Truth, as they say, is stranger than fiction.
This is one gutsy lady.
Irena’s played by Québecois actress Sophie Nélisse, and she’s absolutely riveting. Her performance carries the movie. The only real criticism I have of her character is that she’s, well, pretty much flawless. And the real woman the film is based on may very well have been: she did save a dozen lives at great personal risk. But with our jaded modern mindset, throwing in a character flaw might have made her a little more relatable.
This is a low budget film, but it knows its limits, and never oversteps. Everything looks right for the period. There are a few staging choices that seem a little on the nose, and one awkward scene is even more awkward thanks to the direction and dialogue, but otherwise this is a solid film.
I started watching it on Netflix, just to see if it was a decent movie or a low budget Canadian throwaway. I only intended to watch a few minutes, but half the movie went by before I even realized it.
There are plenty of mega budget films (*cough* Multiverse of Madness *cough*) that can’t say the same.
The Founder is the tale of an avaricious, driven anti-hero, while Worth is about a man who transcends his own limitations to become a better person. Irena’s Vow is about a paragon of virtue who risks her life for the sake of others, because it's the right thing to do.
As people, they couldn’t be more different.
Guess which one our extrinsic centred society rewarded most.
Go on, guess.
All I can say is, in a world overrun with wannabe Ray Krocs, I am grateful for the Irenas.
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