Unfrosted Parent Guide

It’s 1963 and America’s biggest cereal companies, Kellogg’s and Post, are locked into a perpetual battle for breakfast supremacy. Kellogg’s seems to be winning, but panic ensues when they learn that Post has invented a shelf stable fruit pastry, something Kellogg’s tried to do but deemed to be impossible. With the fate of the company at stake, Edsel Kellogg III (Jim Gaffigan) calls in the big guns to win the pastry race with Post.

Bob Cabana (Jerry Seinfeld) is assigned the fruit pastry project and to succeed, he woos back Donna “Stan” Stankowski (Melissa McCarthy) from NASA. She brings along a motley crew of experts from other arenas and despite the zany mishaps, Cabana is able to synthesize their contributions and lead the group to develop a kid-friendly toaster pastry. But will they be able to bring it to market before Post?

Unfrosted is an insane movie. There’s no other word for it. In fact, it’s probably best if you don’t think of it as a movie, but as an extended comedy sketch. After all, it popped out of the brain of Jerry Seinfeld and the cast is full of late night comedy stars. It’s not surprising that the production’s provenance is hard to miss.

Those late night roots are visible in a couple of ways. First, the pacing isn’t tight enough and gags sometimes run too long, exhausting their comic potential before the scene ends. Second, no one seems to have asked if the joke is going too far. There’s a deeply weird scene of a funeral which features tributes from costumed mascots before milk and cereal are poured all over the casket. It’s not funny; it’s just cringe-y. The creation of a living piece of ravioli also introduces a subplot that’s simply impossible to like. Finally, the movie’s acting lacks any emotional depth, although I think that’s by design. This is a bright, slapstick, candy-colored piece of nonsense, and the acting is superficial and slick to match.

Comedy is often transgressive, and Unfrosted has a surprising amount of negative content given its cartoon vibes. There’s plenty of slapstick violence, with a person flipping elastics and hitting someone with a typewriter. On a darker level, a main character is drugged and abducted. When he awakens, hooded and tied to a chair, he’s threatened. Another character dies in an accidental explosion. More chillingly, a woman negotiates a deal with a powerful man, who tells her he’ll go along if she has sex with him. Throw in some swearing, and scenes of adults drinking alcohol and smoking cigarettes, and this movie earns its PG-13 rating. Don’t watch it with kids.

On the bright side, this loony film has some genuinely funny moments, a great mid-century aesthetic (with clothes to die for), and hysterical secondary characters. Hugh Grant stands out as a crotchety Tony the Tiger (keep an eye out for his shaman costume as he storms the Kellogg’s building) and Peter Dinklage plays the boss of Big Milk with tongue-in-cheek menace. Mad Men fans will get a hoot out of Jon Hamm’s appearance as an arrogant advertising executive. Just like the product whose origin it chronicles, this movie is junk food, but it knows what it is and delivers a whole lot of sugary dumb, funny empty calories. Just don’t consume too many.