The Road to Wellville (1994)

The Road to Wellville is U-Turn meets Exit to Eden -- sort of the illegitimate spawn of Terry Gilliam and the Farrelly Brothers, spoofing turn-of-the-century health regimen practices. Anthony Hopkins is Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, cereal magnate and director of the Seventh Day Adventists' Battle Creek Sanitarium (which did burn down in 1902 but was rebuilt, operating until 1933, and still stands as the Hart-Dole-Inouye Federal Center). Think of Hopkins here as a bully-pulpit Teddy Roosevelt with buck teeth. Basically he advocates physical exercise, the use of many self-invented though medically questionable devices (some involving electricity), no sex or sensuality even between married couples (as a waste of bodily fluids and energy), no meat, lots of vegetables, and lots of enemas (water and yogurt) for everyone. (This is all true and even Pres. Taft was a patient.) The performances of Hopkins and the ensemble cast (Matthew Broderick, Bridget Fonda, John Cusack, Lara Flynn Boyle, Michael Lerner, and esp. Dana Carvey as the crazed George Kellogg with Jacob Reynolds as young George) are both nuanced and over-the-top -- based on the characters and full of surprises. Colm Meaney appears as Kellogg's nemesis, Dr. Lionel Badger, an advocate of sexual expression who, with Norbert Weisser as Dr. Spitzvogel, finds an inquisitive audience in Eleanor Lightbody (Fonda) and Virginia Cranehill (Camryn Manheim). Meanwhile, William Lightbody (Broderick) has a few hallucinations of naked women (Traci Lind as his lovely nurse and Boyle as his pale hall neighbor). Throughout, Hopkins is officious and pedantic as he spouts his prescriptions for "exonerating one's bowels." Much of the humor is scatological but as satire not slapstick. (After all, people believed and practiced this stuff for 50-75 years.) The Road to Wellville is a fast-paced farce that you may have to watch again to catch all the comedy. It's intelligent but lowbrow. Lastly, you will need a sense of humor about sexual references and inquisitiveness (as well as seeing the bare behinds of Broderick and a dozen overweight patients). I greatly enjoyed this movie (though I had to get it from a competing service since it has been out of stock here for many years). Click my avatar to see my Bl@ckbuster and other Save title lists. Enjoy! 4.5 stars.