Netflix is overflowing with movies to watch, and it’s impossible for any single person to catch all of them. But one of the joys of subscribing to the biggest streaming service is being able to rediscover films years after they were in theaters.
There are some hidden gems in Netflix’s library that haven’t cracked the streamer’s top 10 movie list, and one of those flicks is The Founder, a 2016 biopic that’s What to Watch’s pick for the one Netflix movie that you have to stream in March. Why? Well, read below to find out.
What Is ‘The Founder’ About?
The Founder was directed by John Lee Hancock from a script by Robert Siegel, and it dramatizes the events that transformed McDonald’s from a single burger joint in San Bernardino, CA to the largest fast food franchise in the world. Michael Keaton headlines the movie as Ray Kroc, the man who was instrumental in making that happen.
But regardless of how Kroc presented himself, he wasn’t the founder of the chain. His story is both an underdog fable and a cautionary tale about trusting the wrong person.
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Somehow, Keaton was largely ignored during the 2017 awards season and he didn’t get any major nominations for his performance as Ray Kroc. Perhaps The Founder flew too under the radar compared to Keaton’s earlier film, Birdman, which earned him an Oscar nomination for Best Actor. Regardless, The Founder is the movie that should have given Keaton that acting prize, in part because he so beautifully plays the hero and the villain of his own story.
During the first part of the film, Kroc is a struggling salesman who can barely keep his finances together. He just simply doesn’t have what it takes to succeed until he gets a piece of McDonald’s. From there, Kroc’s entire arc turns as he worms his way deeper into the company and takes control of it from the real founders. Yet somehow, Kroc doesn’t entirely lose the audience’s sympathy, even when he’s doing underhanded things like stabbing his business partners in the back.
It’s a Fascinating Origin Story
Nick Offerman and John Carroll Lynch are both excellent as Richard “Dick” McDonald and Maurice “Mac” McDonald, the true founders of the restaurant that shares their last name. One of the most impressive sequences in the film is the extended flashback that chronicles how the McDonald brothers came up with the idea that led to fast food as we know it. And more importantly, the audience sees that there were some failures along the way before they found the winning formula.
Neither Lynch nor Offerman has anywhere near the screen time that Keaton does, but they’re both very engaging to watch. Unfortunately for the McDonald brothers, their roles as the founders are overshadowed by Kroc’s aggressive expansion plans.
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That’s the other key part of the McDonald’s origin story: It’s the unholy union of a small family business with a franchise that takes on a life of its own and sublimates everything in its path. Kroc even seems to like the McDonald brothers, but that doesn’t stop him from betraying them the second they stand in the way of his grand plans.
It’s a Nostalgic Look at the Past
One of the most memorable scenes in The Founder happens early in the movie when Kroc has his first meal at McDonald’s. It’s such a transformative experience for him that he barely knows what to make of it. It’s also charming to see Kroc watch the families around him enjoying their meals as the wheels turn in his head about how he can claim a part of it for himself.
The modern-day McDonald’s corporation may disagree, but this movie is actually a very effective advertisement even if it does have some dramatic liberties with the underhanded steps that Kroc took to build his empire.
That ties into one of Kroc’s final scenes when he fully explains why he didn’t simply steal the idea from the McDonald brothers. Kroc saw the value in the nostalgia that McDonald’s evoked, and the power of that nostalgia extends far beyond the reach of this movie.
The Founder is streaming on Netflix.
