Working Girl (1988)

User Rating:

6.6/10   

Director:

Mike Nichols

Writer (WGA):

Kevin Wade (written by)

Release Date:

21 December 1988 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Romance | Drama

Tagline:

For anyone who's ever won. For anyone who's ever lost. And for everyone who's still in there trying.

Plot:

When a secretary's idea is stolen by her boss, she seizes an opportunity to steal it back by pretending she has her boss's job.

Plot Keywords:

Boss | Secretary | Pretending | Business | Career

Awards:

Won Oscar. Another 6 wins & 13 nominations

Cast

Harrison Ford	...	Jack Trainer
Sigourney Weaver	...	Katharine Parker
Melanie Griffith	...	Tess McGill
Alec Baldwin	...	Mick Dugan
Joan Cusack	...	Cyn
Philip Bosco	...	Oren Trask
Nora Dunn	...	Ginny
Oliver Platt	...	Lutz
James Lally	...	Turkel
Kevin Spacey	...	Bob Speck
Robert Easton	...	Armbrister
Olympia Dukakis	...	Personnel Director
Amy Aquino	...	Tess' Secretary
Jeffrey Nordling	...	Tim Rourke
Elizabeth Whitcraft	...	Doreen DiMucci

Runtime:

113 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Portugal:M/12 | Canada:14+ (Ontario) | Iceland:L | Argentina:13 | Australia:M | Chile:14 | Finland:S | France:U | Peru:14 | Singapore:NC-16 | Sweden:Btl | UK:15 | USA:R (Certificate N° 29266) | West Germany:12

Filming Locations:

7 World Trade Center, World Trade Center, Manhattan, New York City, New York, USA

Company:

Twentieth Century-Fox Film Corporation

Trivia:

An original trailer showed a scene not in the finished movie, where Katharine asks Tess to spray her red dress with anti-static, before Katharine's welcome party.

Goofs:

Continuity: Tess places a ruler on a newspaper page to tear out an article about Orin Trask's daughter. In the close-up shot, the ruler suddenly changes to a different design.

Quotes:

Tess McGill: What if he doesn't?... pop the question?
Katherine Parker: I really don't think that's a variable. We're in the same city now, I've indicated that I'm receptive to an offer, I've cleared the month of June... and I am, after all, me.

Movie Connections:

Referenced in "Law & Order: Working Mom (#7.14)" (1997)

Soundtrack:

THE LADY IN RED

A dated but enjoyable satire

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.