Cohen Media Group
Watching a movie in another language from another country is always an interesting experience, especially because there’s always a question about how well things are translating past the surface level stuff — language is one thing, but culture can be unique or encompassing, and themes specific or universal. But one of those common things is the idea that there is a rich dude out there who definitely doesn’t care about you, even if you work for them. Thus there’s also a question about how well, if at all, one should bother telling their stories.
The Good Boss comes from Spanish writer/director Fernando León de Aranoa and stars Javier Bardem as Julio Blanco, the CEO of a company that only makes scales of various sizes, types, and specifications. The exact nature of how big it is isn’t entirely clear, as there’s only one location we see, a single factory, but Julio also has connections with the mayor’s office and the police so perhaps it’s a local sort of influence in their small town.
Julio gives a speech about the importance of balance, which naturally he’s overly obsessed with as a maker of scales — but he’s even more concerned with an upcoming visit from a committee that could grant them another Business Excellence award so everything must be perfect. Naturally everything is about to go terribly wrong.
It starts with simple things, like firing one particularly low performing worker named Jose (Óscar de la Fuente) who tries to guilt them by bringing in his kids and complaining about being divorced and unable to afford a home for himself. He then starts living right outside the entrance to the company, yelling awful things into a bullhorn and raising banners against the company.
Julio gets increasingly frustrated with the situation, which rapidly is getting out of his control, as the days click by closer and closer to the committee’s visit. At the same time, Julio offers to do a favor for a worker by giving his relative a job at his wife’s store, even though the young dude is a bit of a ne’er do well.
Then things start to pile on — one of his higher-ups, Miraells (Manolo Solo), is unraveling in the office due to problems with his wife, yelling his racist complaints against fellow worker Khaled (Tarik Rmili). Julio’s attempt to help his friend only seems to make things worse, while at the same time a new intern has started, named Lilian (Almudena Amor), who Julio immediately has an interest in — but the feeling actually seems to be mutual, and what happens between makes things (of course) even worse.
Eventually everything intertwines in well-considered plotlines as Julio unbalances himself further and compromises himself more and more until it’s clear he was never such a great guy to begin with. The only thing he cares about, more than his wife or friends, is his company and this potential award he desperately craves, and he will do anything to get there.
But when you have someone as charismatic as Javier Bardem, it muddles things, because you can both understand how someone like that got so successful while minimizing how awful he is since he’s also the effective protagonist of the movie. This is more of a classic structural issue, as the movie does seem to be opposed to his actions, yet is unable to prevent him from being an interesting character to root for.
It’s an interesting sort of complexity, presented as a satire or ‘office comedy’ but this ain’t a barrel of laughs, even if there are a few sharp, awkward moments here and there that might elicit a chuckle. Still it’s a pretty entertaining movie, and an interesting sort of look into a world that’s familiar but slightly different from what we know.
The Good Boss has a run time of 1 hour 56 minutes and is not rated.
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