Abhiroop Das
Helmed by David Yarovesky, ‘Brightburn‘ takes the traditional superhero origin story and flips it upside down, showing how insurmountable power can easily be tweaked and channeled into something sinister. The point is made through the character of Brandon Breyer, who crashed on Earth as a baby inside a spaceship. In the years since, he has grown up to be indistinguishable from regular humans, but that changes on his twelfth birthday. Alongside the onset of puberty, he begins to observe some supernatural augmentations to his body, but chooses to keep them a secret from his parents, Kyle and Tori Breyer. From here, he begins a slow descent into darkness and chaos, using his power for increasingly nefarious purposes. As the horror sci-fi movie is set in the titular town of Brightburn, we are introduced to a number of its local highlights, such as Darbo’s Family Grill, which serves as a hidden lens into Brandon’s twisted psyche.
Darbo’s Family Grill is a Fictional Restaurant That Tracks Brandon’s Villanous Arc
Darbo’s Family Grill is an invented addition to the story of ‘Brightburn’ by writers Brian and Mark Gunn. Mainly featured on two occasions in the movie, it becomes an effective gauge for how Brandon’s powers slowly corrupt his mind and body. Despite being designed to fit into the story’s Kansas setting, Darbo’s Family Grill was actually filmed a few states southeast, in Georgia. In particular, the building situated at 121 Jonesboro Road, in the city of Jonesboro, was transformed into the fictional restaurant. Over the course of the movie, we get a much closer look at the place and its finer details, including the fact that it is owned by a man named Frank Darbo. As of writing, the place serves as the location of a real-life Thai cuisine restaurant, named Taste of Thailand.
Although Darbo’s Family Grill doesn’t share its name with a real eating place in Kansas, there are many similar restaurants in that region that might have served as a reference point. Some that vaguely fit the bill are Down Town Grill, located at 414 North 7th Street in the city of Fredonia, and 56 Family Restaurant, situated at 20 US Highway 56, in the city of Galva. However, given the unique narrative context behind Darbo’s Family Grill, its similarities with these real-life restaurants are at best superficial in nature. Instead, it is more probable that the setting was crafted as one of the many visual elements of the movie that are meant to evoke a Midwestern aesthetic and atmosphere. Reportedly, production designer Patrick M. Sullivan Jr. designed the film sets with a comic color book palette in mind, and that is very apparent in how Darbo’s is rendered, both in the exterior and interior shots.
What makes Darbo’s Family Grill a truly memorable location in the movie is the violent episode that takes place inside it. Given the movie’s emphasis on subverting superhero tropes and narrative patterns, the once cheerful and family-oriented fixture doubles ironically serve as a good place to show the sharp turn in the tone of the film. To that end, the restaurant was likely conceived with the plot in mind, and real-life antecedents were potentially used to make it as believable as possible. Despite serving as ground zero for an entirely fictional series of events, Darbo’s continues to keep up the immersion due to how it is organically integrated into the world of ‘Brightburn’ throughout its entire runtime. Filming in Georgia was reportedly a budget-friendly decision by the movie’s production team, and added to the movie’s overall country mood, best depicted by how Darbo’s is utilized in the story.
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