A-List: Movies About Bad Jobs
By Josh Spiegel
September 3, 2009
BoxOfficeProphets.com
Now, not everyone hates their job, but it's pretty common among most people to at least have a healthy dislike for what they do. Movies have been skewering the common man and his daily drudgery for many decades; whether it's a quick scene in a Pixar film like The Incredibles or the out-and-out hatred three women have for their misogynistic boss in 9 to 5, Hollywood is not deaf to the infamous claim the downtrodden employee makes to his or her supervisor: Take this job and shove it. Today's A-List will focus on five films from different decades, all of which feature main characters who either hate their jobs, or just have some of the worst jobs a person could be cursed to perform. At the very least, none of these movies feature professions you may be likely to join once you've sat through their ordeals.
This list is, by no means, considered final or complete. As mentioned above, the list features one film per decade, reaching back to the 1950s. One of the films is so recent and pressing that it's in theaters as this article is being published. All of the films focus on people who are dedicated, in sometimes perverse ways, to their jobs, but none of the films are inspirational in the labor being shown and performed. The glamour that may be often indicative of Hollywood is not present in any of these films, even if some of the characters go to places as diverse as the docks of New Jersey, the United Nations, or a world of imagination. So, onto this week's A-List.
On The Waterfront
To be fair, it could be argued that having a job on the docks of any city, let alone the city of Hoboken, isn't that great. However, with the 1954 classic drama On The Waterfront, it's pretty easy to see that Terry Malloy doesn't have it any easier, dockworker job or not. Terry was a potentially awesome boxer in the past, but now works as a lowly longshoreman under the iron fist of Johnny Friendly (Lee J. Cobb), thanks to the machinations of his brother, Charley (Rod Steiger). After a dockworker is murdered because he planned on testifying against Johnny's union-breaking plans, Terry feels more and more compelled to speak out. What kind of good job is it where, ethics or not, you have to stand up against your own family? Then again, what kind of good job is it where you only work because your brother encouraged you to throw a boxing match?
No, Terry Malloy doesn't have a good job, and On The Waterfront, while a celebration of how the human spirit can triumph over evils of any kind, is not going to tell you any differently. Directed by Elia Kazan, the film is a direct attack against those who criticized Kazan for naming names at the House Un-American Activities Committee, which was the infamous Communist witch hunt of the 1940s and 1950s. As Malloy, Marlon Brando is great here, managing to balance his sometimes over-the-top Method style of acting with the harsh realities represented by Malloy's struggle. On The Waterfront may pale a bit, depending on your ethical or moral viewpoint on what Kazan did, but it is a finely acted film whose message never seems too pointed or obvious. Oh, and it's no advertisement for being a longshoreman.
The Apartment
On the one hand, you work at a job with beautiful women. Even more, some of those beautiful women are in your apartment a lot more than you could have ever dreamed. On the other hand, the only reason those women show up are because you have loaned out your apartment to every boss at your job, so they can have their affairs without their wives knowing about it. Such is the world of C.C. Baxter, played brilliantly by Jack Lemmon. Baxter does this so he can get in good with the higher-ups, but none of them take Baxter too seriously. It's not until Baxter, who works as a typical office drone at an insurance company, meets Fran Kubelik (Shirley MacLaine), who also works at the office as a secretary, that things change. Baxter falls in love, but in this perverse romantic comedy, it's not as simple as just riding into the sunset.
That plot could have been nothing more than fodder for a cheap ‘60s comedy, but with Billy Wilder co-writing and directing, The Apartment is nothing short of a classic. Lemmon and MacLaine have amazing chemistry as friends who obviously would like to be something much more intimate. As personnel director Mr. Sheldrake, Fred MacMurray plays far against type, for those of us who may remember him more as the absent-minded professor as opposed to the lead of Double Indemnity. What's more, The Apartment is a film that fully embraces how awful most jobs have been as far back as 50 years for most people. What fun can there be for a somewhat unsocial person at an office Christmas party, especially if the girl you just fell in love with is fooling around with one of your superiors? Bad job or not, The Apartment is a great, great film.
Brazil
Sure, this 1985 cult classic is more well-known because it began the long and illustrious career Terry Gilliam has had at annoying Hollywood executives and fighting against the establishment to make his films get movie screens, but Brazil is, at its heart, an apocalyptic tale about a man who so hates his job that he reverts into his imagination whenever things become too difficult, too sad, too imperfect; in other words, at all waking hours, Sam Lowry (Jonathan Pryce) is daydreaming. Sam has always dreamed of flying away with his gorgeous dream girl, but is shocked when he sees her in the flesh as Jill, a young woman whose pressuring of bureaucrats has made her a targeted terrorist. Sam gets further involved in a suspected terrorist plot against the totalitarian government that rules the world when he befriends a shrewd air conditioning specialist named Harry.
Brazil is a feast for the eyes, despite being cruel and dark and realistic, as sad as its intended finale is. Pryce may not have the best chemistry with Kim Greist, who plays Jill, but he is the full embodiment of the typical working man, someone who despises what he does, but...well, what else is he going to do aside from dream about escape? Could someone as unimportant and insignificant as he actually escape? Should he even harbor such thoughts? Though its pitch-black finale isn't exactly the best advertisement for fighting the system (and for a time, there was a possibility that no one would see that ending, as Universal Pictures needlessly tampered with the film), Brazil is a nihilistic classic that believes in the power of the imagination, a power that can conquer even the strongest spirit.
Office Space
How could this list even be created without honoring Office Space, one of the biggest cult comedies of all time? Here is a film that has three guys beating a fax machine to death, a waitress wanting to shove all her buttons of "flair" down her boss's throat, and an unfortunately named man lying to a couple of job consultants that he loves the music of Michael Bolton, his namesake. Office Space, which comes from the sly mind of Mike Judge, creator of "Beavis and Butthead" and "King of the Hill", is a movie that encapsulates every dark or wild-eyed thought you may have had at your job, whether it's at a health care firm, an insurance company, technical support...or whatever it is that Initech does. Initech is where Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston, one of the more criminally underused actors) works, and boy, does he hate his job.
Peter hates his job so much that he goes to a hypnotherapist to calm down; unfortunately, things go awry and he stays in a state of complete relaxation. He's so relaxed that, the next day, he decides not to work on the weekend, to quit his job, and ask out the pretty waitress at a nearby restaurant. Ironically, this general malaise gets him promoted, but his friends fired. They decide to pay back the company they loathe so much with a sneaky moneymaking scheme that shouldn't really work. Ah, but this is the movies, and as realistically as Initech is portrayed, it's worth having a happy ending. Still, Office Space is a movie about people who hate their jobs, if only because they are boring, they are dull, and...well, these people may just have a case of the Mondays.
In The Loop
First and foremost, In The Loop is the funniest film of 2009, to date, and you probably haven't heard of it or seen it. If you're lucky, this British comedy is playing somewhere near you or you can get the film on Video On Demand. Here's the deal: if you like shows like "The Office" or "The West Wing", you must see In The Loop. It's in your best interest to wade into this film, which deromanticizes politics, whether in London or Washington, D.C. This satirical farce focuses on the mistake a cabinet minister in the British Parliament makes when he says that war with an unnamed Middle Eastern country is "unforeseeable", as such statements go against the conventional wisdom among most British politicians. The minister (Tom Hollander) comes in the firing line of Malcolm Tucker, a vile press director whose behavior would be more shocking if his use of profanity wasn't so damn unique.
Eventually, Tucker and the minister come in contact with American politicians, who either want the war to go through or want there to be no action at all; either way, none of the characters are morally clean, and you don't really envy any of their jobs. Who would want to work in a place where you are reamed out for speaking your mind? Unless you're a sadist, such a prospect might not sound so inviting. Though In The Loop, directed and co-written by Armando Iannucci, is a pleasure to watch and easily one of the best political satires, it's not a film that makes you want to work in politics, especially since people can lose their position so easily, even if all that matters is expressing your opinion.