“The Founder” recently had its press conference in Los Angeles, California, and it took place the week before President Barack Obama is set to leave the White House and Donald Trump will move in. While no one brought up their political views during this press conference, the movie felt more timely than perhaps its filmmakers intended as it illustrates the birth of unrestrained capitalism. Considering we have a die-hard capitalist set to be the next President of the United States, it’s hard not think about the corporate world and corporations as we watch Michael Keaton play Ray Kroc, a salesman from Illinois who discovered a different kind of restaurant run by Maurice and Richard McDonald and eventually turned it into a billion-dollar franchise. But in the process, Ray convinces just about everyone around him that he was the one who founded McDonald’s, and he eventually steals the brothers’ business right out from under them.

Directed by John Lee Hancock, “The Founder” deals with a number of different subjects like capitalism (sustainable and unrestrained), business, greed, the corporate world, etc. The movie also makes you wonder if it is even remotely possible to run a corporation without losing your heart and soul in the process. But most of all, it makes you see how everyone doesn’t see the American Dream in the same way.

Laura Dern also stars in the movie as Ray’s wife, Ethel, and it was fascinating to hear her talk about the elements in the story which were hiding just beneath the surface. Also, she talked about seeing the movie with her daughter and how they reacted to a key scene involving the McDonald brothers.

Laura Dern: The piece that interested me, which was probably the piece I knew about Ray Kroc or McDonald’s, was this question of the introduction of the filler. I was fascinated that the film pointed it out, but also this question of how did it turn from real food to how we can make a fast buck and potentially poison people. What is that? And the subversive question which interested me the most was this question of, can capitalism hold compassion, and what is that story? And so, that moved me so much when John (Lee Hancock) first spoke to me about it, and hearing all these amazing people were involved. I would just love to add because I thought it was so incredible, I got to see the film last night with my daughter who is just turning 12, and to hear from her perspective, because I like to think it’s politically subversive and a commentary on this question of empathy versus corporations and can there be a place for both; I was talking about my favorite shot which just brings me to tears of these two gentlemen with their arms around each other watching the McDonald’s section of their sign be removed. I was talking about it, and when we go in the car my daughter said, “Mom, you know when those brothers were holding each other at the end?” I said, “Yes.” She goes, “That’s how I felt after (President Barack Obama’s) farewell address. We just don’t know what’s next.” And that was the film to me, and I just loved for a 12-year-old the details of the story, the point was she got what I think you all intended, and I was really moved by that.

John Carroll Lynch (above on the right) co-stars as the hard-working Maurice McDonald who is excited to see his brother’s restaurant become an even bigger success than it already is. He excitedly spoke about what he knew about Ray Kroc, but more importantly, he described how Ray’s level of thinking has become the typical kind of thinking for everyone in this day and age.

John Carroll Lynch: I knew Ray Kroc in kind of the way that Michael (Keaton) was talking about. I thought of him as the founder even though I knew there were the brothers before him. I also knew that he had owned the (San Diego) Padres, and I also knew that after his death particularly that his wife gave away massive amounts of money, and I would hear her name on National Public Radio all the time. So, that was my personal relationship with it, but knowing the story a little bit and seeing the things that are absolutely bedrock, admirable American traits of entrepreneurship, of persistence, of salesmanship, of a sense of seeing something and how far it can go, of vision, all of those things are incredibly attractive. And what I love about the way the movie unfolds was how there’s a moment when he could tell the truth about the origin of the company, and you might not feel so badly about what happens if he could just give somebody else credit. If he could just be humble enough to go, there were these two brothers who had this amazing idea, and I figured out a way how to make it on every street in America with this other guy’s help. He could have said any of those things, but every moment he has any opportunity to tell the truth, he can’t do it because he needs to be the guy. There’s also a moment in the story where you watch him kind of digest the lie over time, and it becomes the truth to him. That is very indicative of where we are right now which is what we are told is in some ways, to many of us, more important than the actual truth, and we just want to believe the easy part of what’s said and not the hard parts, and I include myself in that. I don’t want to have to deal with the hard parts. I don’t want to have to deal with the fact that people are destroyed or land is destroyed. I really, really like Egg McMuffins (everybody laughs), and that’s where my dilemma is.

Now whatever you may think about McDonald’s before and after you see “The Founder,” their breakfast menu is simply delicious. Even if eating there threatens my cholesterol levels, I have to have a Sausage McMuffin with Egg or an Egg White Delight every once in a while.

Then there was Keaton who talked at length about how the meaning of the American Dream has changed drastically over time into something which is largely unrealistic. The more he talked about it, the more one had to wonder if it even exists in its most simple form anymore. With wages failing to catch with cost of living increases, you have to wonder if it is even within one’s reach these days.

Michael Keaton: I did some press early on in Europe. I heard it there and I heard it from a few journalists from outside the U.S. yesterday, and this morning on the phone they bring it up. It’s interesting because the U.S. journalists don’t bring this up, and that is the issue of the American Dream. This is fascinating to me unless I missed something. We can go on and on about consumerism, waste, greed, etc., etc. Their perception of what the American Dream is, and let me be a little more specific, not to miss the issue with such a generalization, when they talk about the American Dream, they do it in relation to billions and mansions, and they kind of make the assumption of an extravagant lifestyle of private jets, owning islands and everything. That’s fascinating to me because my concept of the American Dream, unless I missed something here, in its simplest form, is work hard enough and there will be a job available and you can buy a house, and you can buy a car to get you back and forth from work so where you can afford that house, and have couple of kids who can attend a good school, you get a good vacation maybe, and maybe a second car. Unless I missed something, that ain’t a bad thing. I think that’s what it was. That’s not what the perception is. It’s this other thing. I want to say it is an ugly thing. I have no problem with billionaires, especially billionaires like Bill Gates who do the things they do or my friend Yvon Chouinard who I keep referring to. Pick one. There are a bunch of them out there. But there’s this other perception out there. Am I nuts? That’s not what the idea was.

Now while these discussions might have taken away from talking about the making of “The Founder,” they stayed with me long after the press conference had ended. The movie is largely about capitalism and of how it can be exercised in both healthy and unhealthy ways, and it’s hard not to think about our dysfunctional relationship with the corporate world in the new millennium. Whatever way you want to look at it, “The Founder” is a compelling cinematic experience which chronicles the rise of a franchise we are all very familiar with and which plays a significant part in our lives whether we want it to or not.

“The Founder” opens in theaters this Friday, January 20^th. Be sure to check it out!

Poster and photos courtesy of The Weinstein Company.

Check out the video, courtesy of Movie Maniacs, to view the entire press conference.