Rom-coms, generally speaking, are not my thing. Sure, there are many out there that are considered cinematic classics, but they just aren’t my thing. I know that there will be a couple that meets cute, they may bicker, have a third act fake-out break-up, and then end up together. And yes, there are plenty of movies I do enjoy (like superhero flicks) that are just as formulaic if not more, but that doesn’t change the fact that, generally speaking, I don’t have much interest in rom-coms.
But Working Girl was leaving HBO at the end of the month, and it did get a slew of Oscar nominations, many for acting, so why not give it a look?
Staten Island secretary Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) wants to get ahead in the world of high fiance. Sure, she has a lot of support from her best friend Cynthia (Joan Cusack), but she has a succession of sleazy male bosses that seem more inclined to set her up as a sex object than a legitimate business mergers and acquisitions type. Then she takes up a new job with a woman investment banker named Katherine Parker (Sigourney Weaver). At first, Katherine seems like a supportive dream boss, but then a ski accident lays Katherine up out of town with a broken leg and Tess learns Katherine stole an idea of Tess’s for a merger. Since Katherine is out of town, Tess can use Katherine’s wardrobe and connections to broker the deal herself with the help of executive Jack Trainer (Harrison Ford). Will she win over the guy, get the merger done, and get the credit for it before her shifty, two-faced boss returns?
Now, there’s a lot to like about this movie. It did garner multiple Academy Award nominations including Best Picture, Best Director for Mike Nichols, Best Actress for Griffith, and Best Supporting Actress for Weaver and Cusack. Granted, it won for Best Song, but quite frankly, that was one of the more forgettable things in the movie. But there is a nice charm to the movie. All those nominations were earned, the movie is sweet, and Ford seems more like a boyish nice guy than the grumpy fellow he seems to be in every movie these days.
And that’s before we get into the other famous faces in the film, notably Alec Baldwin as Tess’s no good boyfriend, Oliver Platt as her first sleazy boss, and Kevin Spacey as a cokehead with a thing for unwanted sexual advances…OK, that one aged as badly as Joan Cusack’s giant hair.
In fact, it seems weird that of all the recognizable actors in the movie, it’s Griffith whose career seems to have sputtered out the most, and she’s the title character. She also has third billing in the credits behind Ford and Weaver (in that order). But there’s a girlish charm there to match Ford’s boyish one as he seems to be the only decent man in all of Wall Street, and she just treats people like people.
That said, I wasn’t much of a fan of this. There wasn’t anything really wrong about it. I just can’t quite seem to get into the love lives of 80s high fiance types. The movie places a lot of emphasis on making money as much as it does with making human connections, and I don’t know how much characters like Jack and Tess can really appeal to an audience in 2020. Times have changed, and these characters, much like Cusack’s aforementioned giant hair: products of their time. I may have enjoyed it more if I had seen it when it was new, but such was not to be.
Plus, the genre still isn’t my thing.
Grade: C+
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