Techtite's DVD Reviews!

Working Girl

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A Techtite Review

A PG film, starring Melanie Griffith, Harrison Ford, and Sigourney Weaver

The Film : Before Working Girl, all the leads of this film were best known for anything other than comedy. Harrison Ford was best known as either Han Solo or Indiana Jones, in various sci-fi/action sagas. Sigourney Weaver, comparatively, was best known as Ripley in the Alien horror film saga. Melanie Griffith...well, before this, she was probably best known for bit parts here and there. All of their performances here lead to a powerful, wonderful, feel-good office comedy, that showed the comedic potential of Ford and Weaver, and at the same time, essentially revitalized Griffith's entire career.

Admittedly, the storyline is simple enough. A certifiably unemployable office assistant names Tess McGill (Griffith) is sent by her personnel director to yet another job, after getting fired yet again from her latest ex-job. "This is it," her last chance, says the director (Olympia Dukakis), after which she will surely never find work anywhere, ever again. Fortunately, her next job as executive assistant seems rather nice, and the boss, Katherine Parker (Weaver), even seems to take a liking to Tess. Miss Parker even listens intently to her advice, including an idea Tess has to merge a major radio station with a firm the company is working with, leading to a possibly big raise for the person whose idea it was (which, Katherine promises, will surely be Tess).

As it turns out, Katherine is a major ski-slope fan, and decides that now would be the perfect time to go on vacation, while Tess is left to hold the fort. This is both good and bad news for Tess, as she discovers some things out when Miss Parker is away. While taking care of her apartment, Tess discovers that, yep, sure enough, her big business idea is being stolen from her, right from under her nose. However, with the boss away, who's to stop Tess from being the woman in charge of the business opportunity, herself? Using Parker's office, she pretends to be a big-business woman instead of a "mere" office assistant, and proceeds to sell her idea to the bigger bosses of the other companies. This includes Jack Trainer (Ford), who is in fact Katherine's ex-fiancée, and takes an immediate liking to Tess. Things are really going well for Tess in many ways, though what is to happen when Katherine arrives and wants her office back? The answer is fanciful, though that is what makes the story so fun.

Acting is superb throughout, as is the story and direction. Even bit parts are well cast, including Alec Baldwin as Tess' seedy ex-boyfriend, and Joan Cusack as Tess' best friend. People may also be intrigued, in this 1988 film), at seeing now-famous movie stars in bit parts, including Oliver Platt, Kevin Spacey, David Duchovney, and Ricki Lake. That's the fist sign of an award-winning comedy; even the tiniest of moments can lead to a good smile!

This film received major kudos from many big movie awards shows, and deservedly so. Its opening song by Carly Simon, won both the Oscar and Golden Globe, for Best Original Song in a Movie. Nominations at that year's Oscars also went out, to Melanie Griffith, Sigourney Weaver, Joan Cusack, director Mike Nichols, and even the picture itself! It might have even won some or all of these, if not for the Oscar sweep of the cult horror hit, Silence of the Lambs. It fared far better at the Golden Globes (which wisely divides awards for comedy and drama), and won Globes for the film, Griffith, and Weaver. These are all very well-deserved honors, for a very well made comedy film.

The DVD : As one of the few films with Harrison Ford on it, offered on DVD (darned Spielburg and Lucas stand firm on their insistence to not release the Indiana Jones and Star Wars movies...yet), you'd think he'd at least be offered the chance to be in an audio commentary track, along with Weaver and Griffith. No such luck. In fact, there is no audio track of any kind, nor any real bonus materials of any kind. Considering how fun this film was, as well as how it revitalized Griffith's career in the process, you'd think there would be more respect for the film on its DVD version. Sadly, there isn't.

	Final Rating : Large Crater. A really good comedy, in every sense of the word. While not as funny as some other, slapstick comedies, it still is more than worth watching.
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