The Road To Wellville

It's hard to discern what cinematic possibilities director Alan Parker imagined he saw in T. Coraghessan Boyle's comic novel about American health faddists at the turn of the century. Even if Parker believed that the material must automatically bear satirical fruit in the context of our own health-crazed era, THE ROAD TO WELLVILLE emerges as a meretricious, big-budget failure on a par with celebrated all-star catastrophes like CANDY, 1941, and EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES.

While his more famous sibling grows rich selling cereal, dietary fanatic Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins) reigns supreme over The San, his made-to-order spa in Battle Creek, Michigan...