It took me a while to find The Road to Wellville (1994) on Amazon Prime.  Its description talked about Dr. John Harvey Kellogg (Anthony Hopkins) and his Battle Creek Sanitarium in Michigan, which took my mind back to a friend of mine from Loyola who wrote about what when on in that place.  These days, we think that we practically invented health consciousness, and that diet fads are a modern phenomenon.  There are some, too, who also bring in a spiritual element, though rarely is it tied to anything Christian.  I wonder how many realize that, like any vegan we might know now, many Catholic monks and nuns have similar practices?  As today’s film shows, and it does a decent enough job with its history, people around the turn of the twentieth century had their own fads.  It is presented as a comedy, and it is one I thought about shutting off halfway through, but it underscores the changing nature of ideas on health.  Therefore, I soldiered on waiting for a point, which kind of came, I guess.  Please allow me to attempt to sort this out for you.

In order to set the scene for The Road to Wellville that husband and wife Eleanor (Bridget Fonda) and William Lightbody (Matthew Broderick) are on, we first get a glimpse of some of the regimen instituted by Dr. Kellogg at the Battle Creek Sanitarium.  The specific road the Lightbodys travel in the beginning is of the rail variety, and in the train’s dining car they meet Charles Ossining (John Cusack).  Charles is also on his way to Battle Creek, but to take part in the burgeoning breakfast cereal industry in the Michigan town.  Their paths diverge once they arrive, but the Lightbody’s diverge further as Eleanor and William are separated after being inspected by Dr. Kellogg.  The so-called physician immediately declares William to be unwell and sends the protesting husband off to be treated, while Eleanor is taken for her own care.  William is not happy with this arrangement because, despite following Dr. Kellogg’s eating guidelines of abstaining from meat and consuming only toast and water, he still sexually desires Eleanor in a way she finds off-putting.  Dr. Kellogg believes that intimacy between a man and woman should only happen for the purpose of procreation.  This sounds Catholic, but I assure you that is not what the Church teaches.  Due to his, er, frustrations, let us just say that his imagination goes to places it probably should not go as he receives a whole host of supposed curatives, like daily enemas.  That is one of the many reasons I almost stopped watching.  As for Charles, things are not going much better.  The partner waiting for him to begin their hoped-for cereal empire, Goodloe Bender (Michael Lerner), has been spending their start-up money on luxurious accommodations.  While Goodloe has been sumptuously wining and dining, he has failed to find a factory to commence their operations.  It is about this time that Charles and Goodloe meet George Kellogg (Dana Carvey), Dr. Kellogg’s estranged adopted son, emphasis on the “strange.”  As a little boy (Jacob Reynolds), Dr. Kellogg had a difficult time communicating with George.  As a man, George has become a dirty vagrant, coming around whenever he needs money from his father.  What George does have is the Kellogg name.  Thus, with the dubious assistance of another Kellogg employee, they set to coming up with their own corn flake recipe.  None of it works and eventually they resort to stealing some of the cereal being produced at the sanitarium and putting it in their own packaging.  Goodloe goes abroad to sell what they “made,” claiming fantastic success upon his return.  However, Charles has news that their primary investor, his aunt Mrs. Hookstratten (Carole Shelley), is coming and wants to see their operation.  The next day, Goodloe departs leaving all his bills and debts to Charles.  As this has gone on, we have seen Eleanor and William grow, um . . . more accustomed to their day-to-day activities.  They have not been seeing much of each other, despite William’s desires, but he has been getting, and giving, inappropriate attention from another patient, Ida Muntz (Lara Flynn Boyle).  Eleanor has not been behaving much better.  As she becomes closer friends with another woman at the sanitarium, Virginia Cranehill (Camryn Manheim), the latter’s inhibitions begin to change Eleanor’s thinking on sex.  At one point, William witnesses two men die at once due to the faulty health machines at the facility.  It becomes too much for him, and that night he ends up at the local saloon with Charles, drinking and eating steak.  When he stumbles back to Dr. Kellogg’s lair, William tries to get his wife to leave with him but she refuses.  Instead, William is forced to undergo surgery on his intestines, and Eleanor falls further under the sway of Virginia and the newly arrived vegetarian fanatic, Dr. Lionel Badger (Colm Meaney).  While his thoughts are in dietary compliance with the sanitarium, he has vastly different views on carnal pleasures, which are clearly aimed at Eleanor.  She is also persuaded to visit Dr. Spitzvogel (Norbert Weisser), whose “therapeutic massages” are nothing more than foreplay.  As things continue to spiral out of control, William’s nurse, Irene Graves (Traci Lind), finally gives in to his advances and they go for a boat ride alone.  Before things can get too far, though, William realizes he loves Eleanor and goes to look for her.  He finds her with Virginia and Drs. Badger and Sptizvogel doing . . . things.  William’s rage over this, despite her denials, proves to her that he is well enough for them to go home.  Before they can do so, George pays one last visit to Dr. Kellogg and burns down the sanitarium.  The fire engine sent to put out the blaze knocks over the police wagon in which Charles had been placed, having been arrested for stealing Dr. Kellogg’s flakes.  He would go on to make it rich in the soft drink industry, sending the Lightbodys a dividend check.  As for Dr. Kellogg, he later dies attempting a complicated jump off a diving board.

What you just read about The Road to Wellville might sound complicated, and this is after I streamlined the plot for you. My decision to keep it on is also complicated.  To be sure, there is little value in seeing it.  Part of why I struggled through it is because I was curious about the history.  Dr. Kellogg and his sanitarium existed, and it is from that location that corn flakes were invented.  What is also true is that he believed by eating a bland diet, one could diminish man’s baser instincts.  To achieve this, he proposed treating the body in such a way as to purge it of the things that excited our lust.  He approached this in a religious manner, and it is worth noting that he was once a Seventh Day Adventist, though eventually left that particular protestant sect.  Indeed, at least in the movie, you can see in the background the sanitarium being referred to as a “Temple of Health.”  The problem is that healthiness, at least how it is portrayed here, became a god for Dr. Kellogg.  He states at the end that he believes that with the right regimen, he will live forever, before promptly dying mid-dive.  The lesson here is that what he asserts about healthy living cannot take the place of faith in the actual God.  No matter what we put into our bodies, we will one day die.  A lot of Faith is about preparing for that inevitability.  Jesus has something to say on this subject in Matthew 15:11, which reads, “It is not what enters one’s mouth that defiles that person; but what comes out of the mouth is what defiles one.”  He was positing this in response to those who wondered at Him and His followers not following the Law of Moses as those like the Pharisees interpreted it.  A lot of those regulations had to do with food.  Despite Jesus’ words here, after His Ascension there were still those who wondered about what they should eat when, for example, in a strange land acting as God’s messengers.  In chapter ten of the Acts of the Apostles, God grants Peter a vision of a whole host of animals, many once considered unclean, that Christians enjoy eating today.  Having said all this, there is nothing wrong with a vegan or vegetarian diet, or otherwise.  The danger is in placing its practice before serving God.

The Road to Wellville has the air of everyone being at the sanitarium to serve Dr. Kellogg, though he slowly loses control as the film proceeds.  Actually, all the characters have a brush with insanity, and all with far too much nudity.  It is nice to see that the Lightbodys avoid this fate (barely), going home and raising four daughters, a blessing considering that they talk about previously losing a child.  As satisfying as the ending is, nothing that comes before it justifies seeing it.