A business course on cutthroat capitalism disguised as a slacker comedy: Thats the kindest way to describe Michael Lehmanns Flakes, a movie that shares the smug, hipper-than-thou sensibility of its sour protagonist, Neal Downs (Aaron Stanford).
An aspiring rock musician who manages a New Orleans eatery where the only bill of fare is breakfast cereal, Neal is a reflexively sarcastic deadbeat whose equally sour girlfriend, Pussy Katz (Zooey Deschanel), shares his bohemian dream of traveling the country in an Airstream trailer, making music and art.
The walls of the restaurant, called Flakes, are lined with cereal boxes, including rare discontinued brands. As customers slop up exotic combinations, the movie suggests a deadpan spoof of gourmet fetishism. One house specialty chocolate-flavored grains steeped in chocolate milk sounds particularly nauseating.
Owned by Willie (Christopher Lloyd), a decrepit hippie geezer with mad-scientist hair, Flakes limps along as a hangout for deadbeats until a bright-eyed yuppie visitor, Stuart (Keir ODonnell), proposes turning it into a lucrative franchise. When Willie and Neal express no interest, Stuart establishes a...