Jerry Seinfeld’s new Netflix comedy is a celebration of American breakfast. It blends facts and fiction into a pleasing mix that also includes lots of surprises, thanks to a vast cast and a generous sprinkling of celebrity cameos. The film is directed and co-written by Seinfeld. He also stars as a fictional Kellogg executive named Bob Cabana in this story detailing the development of the beloved Pop-Tarts toaster pastries. This movie might have been a straight documentary or even a real life corporate drama like Air or Blackberry. But, Seinfeld makes something more ambitious out of his tart tale. The results have split critics and audiences, and – love it or hate it – the comedian has managed to make the origin story of a breakfast treat one of the most controversial films of the year just as we’re heading into the summer movie season.
Unfrosted is weird: its production design is a hyper-real recreation of America circa 1963; the characters are portrayed like cartoon cutouts; all the jokes are told with a wink. It mixes the actual people and events surrounding the rivalry between the Post and Kellogg cereal empires with a heaping helping of artistic license. The results find the Space Race, the Cold War, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Zapruder Film all ensnared in service of a story about Pop-Tarts. Movie references to Apocalypse Now, The Right Stuff and The Godfather might catch viewers by surprise, but wait until they see the movie’s spirit animal: a sentient runaway ravioli filled with sea monkeys, developed by Chef Boyardee and a former German Nazi.
I’ve recently found myself defending lots of films that people hate and hating lots of films that people love – I still think David Gordon Green’s The Exorcist: Believer is superior to his Halloween reboots, and I continue to insist that Anatomy of a Fall is the single most boring movie I saw in 2023. Unfrosted works best if you give yourself over to its surreal detailing, the unexpected largesse of its scale, and the picture’s super silly suspension of reality. Seinfeld leaves audiences stuck between a story about the actual American cereal industrial complex, and the fantasy world reflected in the colorful mascots, toy surprises, and back-of-the-box games that make breakfast the most kid-friendly meal on the American menu. In Seinfeld’s vision, Snap, Crackle and Pop are never portrayed as actors with normal names playing mascots, and the Quaker Oats spokesman comes off as a colonial religious fanatic who rails against additives like niacin and rants about the sanctity of pure grain.
The movie boasts a vast cast of characters and cameo performers. Hugh Grant is a real highlight, playing Thurl Ravenscroft as a Shakespeare-trained Brit who’d rather be doing King Lear. The real Ravenscroft was an American who performed Tony the Tiger and coined the catchphrase, “They’re Grrrreat!” Melissa McCarthy plays a NASA scientist that Bob Cabana lures back to Kellogg to develop their secret tart. She delivers some of the sliest laughs in a film committed to bone dry punchlines. Bill Burr delivers a very good President John Kennedy and Bobby Moynihan is totally committed to his Chef Boyardee character. Dan Levy adds his name to the list of actors who’ve portrayed Andy Warhol. The name Pop-Tart was actually a play on the Pop Art movement that Warhol became emblematic of. Warhol’s work elevated the iconography of everyday consumer culture, changing the world’s understanding of art. He divided the critics and audiences of his time, too.
Unfrosted is currently streaming on Netflix
Joe Nolan is a critic, columnist and performing singer/songwriter based in East Nashville. Find out more about his projects at www.joenolan.com.