Comedy is serious business, so they say.  Here you have a legendary comic talent — Jerry Seinfeld — who has the idea, co-writes the script and directs the film, gathering as many friends and associates into the fold as he can to provide both talent and familiarity, and perhaps surprise as well.  Seinfeld has been obsessive about Kellogg’s Pop Tarts for a long time and this is his ode to their invention.  But he wasn’t interested in merely documenting their development; his film is a farce upon the ways of business, American breakfasts, labor relations, gender issues, even the era itself.  It’s a scattershot comedy which, like that description, hits only some of its targets.  Mostly it is benign silliness, undermined by its attention to alternative facts.

Jerry Seinfeld’s film focuses on the real corporate battle to develop a self-contained breakfast food with tasty fillings that could be eaten cold or warmed.  Kellogg’s and Post spent years trying to develop such a food and their rivalry finally brought us Pop Tarts (instead of Country Squares).  This story is related by idea guy Bob Cabana (Jerry Seinfeld) to a young runaway boy, almost as a fable.  Eventually the kid’s parents arrive and the fable ends.  During that time some of the actual story is recounted but much of it is completely imaginary, and not particularly amusing.

Seinfeld’s decision to muddy the real story with people that didn’t exist, events that never occurred and stuff that doesn’t make sense is simply to tell this somewhat irrelevant American history with imagination rather than respect.  For the real story, check out the episode on the TV series “The Food That Built America,” titled “Breakfast That Pops,” Season Four, Episode One.  It’s like comparing award-worthy journalism with the disinformation provided by the dark internet.  The real question is whether the movie is entertaining.  It sure tries to be.  The cast includes Melissa McCarthy, Christian Slater, Jon Hamm, Jim Gaffigan, Hugh Grant, Amy Schumer, Patrick Warburton, Cedric the Entertainer, Jack McBrayer, Sebastian Maniscalco, Bobby Moynihan, Dean Norris, Peter Dinklage, Maria Bakalova, Bill Burr, John Slattery, Fred Armisen, James Marsden and Thomas Lennon.  And those are the people I recognized; there are a bunch more that I didn’t.

Is it okay to turn American history into self-absorbed disinformation?  Sure, if it’s funny, or sarcastic, or . . . something.  How many people are going to believe Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter (2012, a real movie)?  Not many, hopefully.  How many are going to believe FDR: American Badass! (2012, a real movie)?  Not many, I suspect.  But Unfrosted seems like it is bent on persuading the American public that all this silliness actually occurred.  What’s next?  Uncovering the dirty secrets buried at Pepperidge Farm?  Showcasing the shadowy alleys that intersect “Sesame Street”?  If you’re going to satirize not just a particular situation or an entire industry, but really the whole of American exceptionalism of the early 1960s, at least make it funny, or witty, or mildly amusing.  ☆ 1/2.  11 July 2025.