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Working Girl Customer Reviews (4 - 6 of 31 Reviews)

an upbeat movie with an unforgettable theme song

It's been 15 years since I first saw this movie. All these years I still remember the opening scene where Tess (Melanie Griffth), in her secretary outfit but wearing sports shoes, was on the ferry heading for the concrete jungle in Manhattan, accompanied by the unforgettable chorus of the theme song. It was early in the morning and Tess was just one of the many working at the low echelon for the big corporations.

Having seen the movie again on DVD recently, I find the plot itself original and not a bit out of date. The clothes and hairstyles of the actresses are conspicuously different (afterall, it's the 80's). Apart from that, the movie itself enticed the audience with its dramatic breadth and emotional depth.

As the story unfolded, Tess, a secretary who went to night schools and read magazines to upgrade herself, thought she striked gold when she explained her idea to her "understanding" boss Katharine (Sigourney Weaver), only to find later that Katharine stole her idea and pretended it was her own. Out of sheer determination and intelligence, Tess reversed her fortune by imposturing as a senior executive, teamed up with Jack (Harrison Ford) and was so close to completing an ingenious business deal - until Katharine came back from her leg injury and took control of the boardroom...

Despite the apparent Cinderella happy ending, the fluid story-telling lured the audience to find out what Tess exactly did to triumph in the end. By asking a critical question in the right place at the right moment, Tess turned her fortune again. The last 10 minutes of the movie was intriguing. Success, when it did come eventually, was far beyond Tess's expectations. And it was not only Tess, but secretaries just like her, who cheered for her.

The success of the movie owed much to the superb cast - the refreshed and good looking Melannie Griffth, cunning and calculating boss Signourney Weaver, the charming Harrsion Ford and the ever supportive best friend Joan Cusack; the well-written script which radiated warmth and conveyed an upbeat message - merits and efforts count and will prevail over evil; not to forget the easy to hum tune. Without any of these, the movie would have been a one too many formulaic Cinderella story.

The most entertaining movie of its genre - Working Girl the movie is worth watching again.

(Incidentally, the movie's success spawned a short-lived TV series Working Girl in 1990, starring Sandra Bullock.)

A Modern Cinderella Story
In the airplane, the lights have gone dim and the New York skyline has started to flicker on the projection screen. Headphones resonate with the opening song that praises the dawn of a New Jerusalem. Ensconced in my narrow seat, I am literally glued to the movie screen, while Tess McGill takes off her sneakers and puts on her high-heeled shoes. Her working day has just begun, and I am on my way to visit the New World for the first time in my life. Unbeknown to us, we are about to undergo a life-changing experience: she from a frustrated secretary to a high-powered corporate executive, and I from teenage to adult youth.

There are scenes and places that you never forget. They acquire the quality of a defining moment, when fiction takes over reality and the boundaries of conscience wither away, opening the gates to the unknown. All of a sudden, imagination is in command, projecting the self to another dimension where the rules of time and space no longer apply. This state of mind, when the spirit still resists the bizarre fantasies of the dream, often allows us to experience some of the most salient impressions that can mark the memory for a lifetime.

Why did this cheap romantic comedy exert such a long-lasting impression on me? Inasmuch as I can recollect the past and delve into my own psyche, I think that my experience at that time was both liminal and libidinal. Or to put it in other words, this moment had to do with crossing limits and with sex appeal.

Thanks to that plane, I was going across borders, both spatial and temporal. It was my first trip to the US, and my first airplane travel since infanthood. At twenty, I was no longer a teenager, and the fact that I had bought the plane ticket with my own money made me feel like an adult. Along with a small group of fellow students, I was about to experience the American dream that had me fantasize throughout the years. Lacking practice, I was still unsure of my English and I had to listen hard to the dialogues, as it was the first American movie that I saw without French subtitles.

But English wasn't the only reason why Tess McGill's husky voice had me on a spell. She bewitched me right from the start, beginning with that first scene when she takes off her shoes under the concupiscent eyes of her two male coworkers. No actress, except perhaps Catherine Deneuve in 'Belle de Jour', ever made such an impression on my senses.

Come to think of it, shoes play an important part in this modern Cinderella story. They too are a marker of limits and a tool for sexual attraction. As illustrated by the transition from the commuter's tennis shoes to office attire, they mark the boundary between personal and professional life, between Tess' working class condition and the world to which she aspires. Shoes are an instrument of social status, class and rank, like the hairstyle that Tess has to change to move upwards and the briefcase that she receives from deal-maker Jack Trainer. In a scene of sadistic quality, Katherine Parker has her assistant bow at her feet in a humiliating position in order to remove the ski boot that she was trying on. When Tess McGill takes advantage of her boss having broken her leg at a European ski resort in order to impersonate her, she literally puts herself into her shoes. Meanwhile, Katherine Parker uses her plaster leg as a tool of seduction, having the whole hospital male crew sign on it in an orgiastic farewell party, or taking advantage of her immobilization to dispose herself in a lace negligee in order to reconquer her former lover. Cinderella's glass slipper takes the form ot Tess' scrapbook, which exposes her deception when she leaves it in the hands of her infuriated boss but also becomes the instrument of her salvation when she is able to recollect the story behind the business deal that the treacherous Katherine cannot construe.

More than the few scenes of exposed nudity, fetishist undertones run throughout the story, giving it a dark glow that bore on my memory since that first plane trip.


quite funny and interseting. no cheesy plot here!
this movie is phenomonal! i luv melanie griffith. she has such poise and a great personality that shines through in her movies. this one is awesome! u know when u really like a movie after ur still not sick of watching it for the one-thousandth time.

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