Working Girl (1988)

Been in the mood for some rom com lately, so last night I spent way too much money at Barnes and Noble renewing my membership and buying movies. I had never seen Working Girl before, but I love the eighties era hair, make up, shoulder pads, and computers. It begins with a surprisingly awesome opening:

It's a silly movie. Surely my time could have been put to better use watching Lawrence of Arabia or Doctor Zhivago, yes? Wrong. With a tagline that reads, "For anyone who's ever won. For anyone who's ever lost. And for anyone who's still in there trying," how could I not buy it!

Small synopsis: Tess McGill has not had a very illustrious education and is struggling to climb the corporate ladder  at the age of 30. However, men still believe a woman's place is raising a child or fetching them coffee. The only way to get ahead is the prestigious quality of your education or the glimpse of thigh-highs you give your next boss. So Tess gets a job working for a woman her own age (Sigourney Weaver). This is all fine until this lady steals some of Tess' ideas.

And what does Tess do? While her boss is out of work with broken leg, Tess pitches her ideas to the alpha dogs of the business. She takes control of her own future with her slightly too-soft (yet very sweet) voice. A lot of other stuff happens, but her guts pay off as she wins love and her own office- kicking Sigourney Weaver back to the bottom.  But seriously:

"No, I'm trying to make it better! I'm not gonna spend the rest of my life working my ass off and getting nowhere just because I followed rules that I had nothing to do with setting up, OK?"

Tess has a point. Who made the rules that defined how to be successful? What are they? Probably something like: 

1. Follow the rules.

2. Make good grades.

3. Join every club- it looks good on paper.

4. Follow the rules.

5. Do whatever is asked of you. 

6. Follow the rules. 

That's fine. But it says nothing about your character. You should never do what is asked of you- you should only act on the marvelous ideas you have for the future. You can work yourself into the ground trying to do whatever people think you should do. But can you really live with yourself at the end of the day? What if you lose yourself? Ayn Rand said it better in John Galt's speech from Atlas Shrugged: 

"Do not let your fire go out, spark by spark, in the hopeless swamps of the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved... The world you desired can be won, it exists, it is real, it is possible, it's yours."

That's what it's all about. This movie is not epic. At first glance it really isn't very memorable. But look closely and you'll see a reflection of the determined-yet-struggling spirit within yourself. 

Also, young Harrison Ford (sans whip, sadly). 

Ultimately, the movie and this tribute allows me to forgive Griffith for the 1997 remake of Lolita.