06.21.05
Movie Reviews: Born Rich, Super Size Me

Born Rich (2003)

In which Jamie Johnson, the 20 year old heir to the multi-billion dollar Johnson and Johnson fortune, interviews his old-money friends on what it’s like to be born into wealth that was acquired generations before they were born.

Can money buy happiness? Well, all of the interview subjects (which include Vanderbilt-Whitney heir Josiah Hornblower, Georgina Bloomberg, S.I. Newhouse IV, Ivanka Trump and a couple of token European royals) are all kind of twitchy and depressed.

Unlike the ostentatious suddenly rich pop and movie stars (or even the ostensibly Old Money Hilton sisters), the 18-23 year olds profiled here mostly come off as modest, thoughtful, and very conscious of the fact that talking about money is a huge faux pas. Aside from that they seem bored, and most of them have bad relationships with their parents.

Unfortunately, the film is amateurish, and seems to barely scratch the surface of the subject’s lives. (It is also marred by Johnson’s stilted narration.) Gaming industry heir Luke Weil at one point comments that while he doesn’t know what he wants to do for the rest of his life, he does want to pursue a career that will make him “indispensable”- he is aware of the fact that for most of us nothing seems more dispensable than a rich (but not famous) kid who never has to work a day in his life. Most of the other interviewees echo the same sentiment, the desire to “do” something, even if the “something” is nebulous. The exceptions are the Europeans, who are almost refreshing in their refusal to pretend that they need a piece of the American Dream- such as the teenaged German Baron who unrepentantly announces that he’s going to spend his life drinking, doing drugs and chasing pussy.

Super Size Me (2004)

First-time filmmaker Morgan Spurlock’s stunt masquerading as an expose is nothing if not entertaining. The gimmick (as if anyone doesn’t know by now) is that he documents an entire month in which he eats nothing but food from McDonald’s to see if he gets fat. He does.

More interesting than the central conceit are some of the side trips he takes along the way, as he regularly checks in with doctors to document his decaying physical condition, interviews his girlfriend about how the experiment has affected his day-to-day mood and behavior, and gets into a lengthy side-investigation on the Federal School Lunch Program.

Will the popularity of this film convince people to stop shoveling crap into their gaping maws? Probably not. But, I’ll be happy if it helps to make documentary film commercially viable.