Working Girl

A pure fantasy served up by Mike Nichols, but a vastly entertaining one.

Melanie Griffith is the secretary with massive hair who pretends to be a corporate business woman when her boss is layed up with a broken leg. The catch is, she finds out she's pretty good at it, and things get complicated when she ends up spearheading a business deal and falling in love with her key partner (Harrison Ford), all the while trying to keep what she's doing from her boss (Sigourney Weaver). It's the kind of movie that could just as easily have been made as a screwball comedy in the 1940s, perhaps with Barbara Stanwyck in the lead role.

The film is a classic in its own small way, one of the best comedies to emerge from the 1980s. Griffith is matched well with her role, so her limitations as an actress don't draw too much attention to themselves. But it's Weaver who steals the show as Griffith's imperious boss. She's a riot as a confident and powerful career woman from hell. And Joan Cusack steals a few scenes of her own as Griffith's best friend and fellow secretary, who sports hair as big as Griffith's and a Joisy accent to boot.

Nichols knows how to direct a comedy so that the funny bits speak for themselves.

Grade: A

This is an example of how to make fun and interesting characters that you can empathize with. It's something that today's entertainment industry has mostly forgotten about.

The film is fun, and the cast is not bad. Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver and Harrison Ford are a great combination. This is a true product of its time and as such is superior to most of today's films.

From the beginning, you sympathize with Tess McGill because the character is well written and not irritating, and the story is well balanced, with different characters, good and bad and those in between.

Sigourney Weaver is excellent in the role of the villain, and Melanie Griffith is great as Tess McGill, a secretary who wants to succeed in the business world.

In this film, not all women are saints, but women of flesh and blood, with their flaws and with whom you can sympathize, and men are the same, different, some are bad some are good, just like in real life.

An interesting and fun story with a good cast.

Watching Working Girl ten years after its release, it's hard not to dismiss it as a dated satire of the corporate world of the 1980's. At the same time, that's part of the movie's charm. Even though ten years has made the costumes, hair, and production design irritating, the charm and intelligence of Mike Nichols' Cinderella story still shine through. As does the quality of the performances, which are also revealing a decade later. Harrison Ford makes a perfectly likable romantic lead while Alec Baldwin and Kevin Spacey offer amusingly smarmy comic performances. But the actresses walk away with the movie. Joan Cusack is hilarious in a scene-stealing turn as a Staten Island secretary, and Sigourney Weaver is great as a shrewd and conniving career woman. The brilliance of Weaver's performance is how slyly and genuinely she plays her villianous character, often decieving the audience as she decieves the characters in the movie. And finally there is Melanie Griffith who gave a star-is-born performance as the big-haired secretary who falls in love with Ford's merger specialist and smartly climbs her way up the corporate ladder after Weaver stabs her in the back. Griffith earned an Oscar nod for this performance (as did Cusack and Weaver for theirs) and it's a testament to how funny, sexy, and wonderful she is in the part that even after numerous flops and odd career moves, she's still a well-known movie star ten years later (For an opposite side at this scenario look at Jennifer Beals in Flashdance or Jennifer Grey in Dirty Dancing, both of whom became big stars and then fell off the face of the earth). Nichols' direction is smart, as is Kevin Wade's clever screenplay, and the light and funny romantic comedy leads up to a surprisingly suspenseful and enormously satisfying climax. All-in-all, a satisfying and amusing entertainment.

Wonderful romance-comedy in the tradition of Capra and Sturges with Griffith perfectly cast as a woman posing as a business mogul to get ahead in the corporate world and spite bitchy boss Weaver, who is simply divine. Ford is especially precious in a rare romantic-comedy as Griffith's partner in business and love interest. The story is creative and witty. Mike Nichols' direction is sharp and in the highest form. The fine supporting cast also features Cusack and the always durable Phillip Bosco. Carly Simon's wonderful song won an Oscar.

Tess McGill (Melanie Griffith) is a smart, plucky, investment worker. She tries to climb the corporate ladder, but she's constantly held back by the sexist environment, and her night school college degree. When she is assigned to be Katharine Parker (Sigourney Weaver)'s secretary, she hoped that things would finally change. She shares a business idea with Katharine. When she finds that Katharine is claiming the idea for herself, Tess takes matters into her own hands.

The subject matter, the style, and the humor is pure 80's. The hair is insane. And there is no accounting for the fashion. It is jaw dropping and unintentionally funny.

As for the story, it's a fairly good happy rom-com from veteran director Mike Nichols. This is possibly Melanie Griffith's best work. She has just enough pluckiness and is a complete sweetheart. Sigourney Weaver is showing her comedic chops. And Harrison Ford is actually a great rom-com leading man.