junkielee

Title: Working Girl

Year: 1988

Language: English

Country: USA

Genre: 

Comedy

Romance

Director:

Mike Nichols

Writer:

Kevin Wade 

Cast:

Melanie Griffith

Harrison Ford

Sigourney Weaver

Joan Cusack

Alec Baldwin

Philip Bosco

Oliver Platt

Nora Dunn

Kevin Spacey

James Lally

Robert Easton

Olympia Dukakis

Amy Aquino

Jeffrey Nordling

David Duchovny

Rating: 7/10

However outdated the costumes and settings, outmoded the corporal cooperation business, I believe the ethic of WORKING GIRL is abiding, at least until this moment (24 years later), resembling a 1980s version of THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (2006), however collected 6 Oscar nominations with 1 win (for Carly Simon’s theme song LET THE RIVER RUN) at its time (including the weighty BEST PICTURE, BEST DIRECTOR and 3 acting nominations), we may hark back to the oldie saying “Miracle happens!”.

I watched the film twice in a row, and its sensational effect of its initial release may have been bleached by an eon 24 years of our generation, but I appreciate the film in conspiring an ingenious plot of this crowd-pleasing dramedy, Melanie Griffith’s role effectively resonates with a widely broad working class not only in 1988 but also nowadays (white collar office suit probably).

The cast is excellent as well, many complain Griffith’s deficiency in stretch as an actress, but Mike Nichols surely helped her to dig into a full blown, a hardball hidden inside her feeble flesh (the nude or underwear scenes are just expendable bravura though). Billed as a comedy, which admittedly is not Griffiths-Ford pair’s strong suit, Weaver and Cusack bulges out for the rescue, both I adore so much in the film (Weaver was a double nominee that year, and I think it deserves my win at least in the supporting category, haven’t seen GORILLAS IN THE MIST 1988 yet).

WORKING GIRL is clearly not the BEST PICTURE material gauged by the current Oscar barometer (Mike Nichols’ big name helped then, which failed to push CHARLIE WILSON’S WAR to fetch the coronet 20 years later), but it is a strong contender to be memorized as a film to remind us how the fashion alters in our fast food world (haircut, clothes, architecture, etc.), USA particularly.