WORKING GIRL
A film review by Craig Good
Copyright 1989 Craig Good
Melanie Griffith's name should finally become a household word after her performance in WORKING GIRL. Stealing the show from the likes of Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford is no mean feat. All three turn in impressive performances in roles which must have been fun for them to play.
Griffith is a secretary with brains and ambition. Her new boss at the investment company is Weaver as a self-centered, unscrupulous, climber of the corporate ladder. Weaver's character is written so on-the-edge that it would have been an unconvincing cartoon in the hands of a lesser actress. Sigourney plays it to the hilt, and eventually convinces us that such a jerk could actually exist. This is the second time this year she's excelled in the role of a difficult, unlikable woman (the first playing Dian Fossey in GORILLAS IN THE MIST).
Harrison Ford does his usual top-notch job in a supporting role as a financier who drinks too much but manages to perform reasonably well at work anyway. When Griffith gets a chance to put together a deal, by pretending not to be a lowly secretary, she needs his help. Naturally, he falls for her. And why not? As she succinctly describes herself while under the influence of valium and tequila, "I've got a head for business and a bod for sin."
The thing I liked most about Griffith and her character was being reminded what a turn-on brains can be. After so many films and so many bimbos it's wonderful to see a gutsy, intelligent woman. She's not superwoman, mind you, and is perfectly capable of making mistakes. But you get the real impression that she learns from them, too. She is constantly making choices: between failure and the failure to take risks, and between a man who buys her underwear and one who buys her a briefcase. She progresses rapidly, like a scrappy, savvy woman. Even her goofy, comic-relief friend (Joan Cusak, delightful as ever) is no airhead.
In the final analysis, WORKING GIRL is an old-fashioned romantic comedy. It now seems like daring, hang-ten film making to take the kind of risks this film does, but once upon a time many movies were like that. I felt almost guilty enjoying an honest-to-gosh happy ending, where work and adventure are rewarded, and avarice and dishonesty fall to satisfying retribution. Having said all that, perhaps I should have simply noted that WORKING GIRL is on my Top Ten list for 1988 and said "check it out."
--Craig
...{ucbvax,sun}!pixar!good
The review above was posted to the
rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup (de.rec.film.kritiken for German reviews).
The Internet Movie Database accepts no responsibility for the contents of the
review and has no editorial control. Unless stated otherwise, the copyright
belongs to the author.
Please direct comments/criticisms of the review to relevant newsgroups.
Broken URLs inthe reviews are the responsibility of the author.
The formatting of the review is likely to differ from the original due
to ASCII to HTML conversion.
Related links: index of all rec.arts.movies.reviews reviews