Eighteen years after Spanish director Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s Goya-winning Mondays in the Sun cast Javier Bardem as a shipyard worker who loses his job, director and actor reunite in another, rather different tale describing the pitfalls of modern employment in a satiric idiom. Whereas Mondays was an earnest and literal drama, The Good Boss (El buen patron) is a sparkling and well-paced comedy; whereas the first resonantly engaged with the anguishing effects of unemployment, the second turns them into huge stereotypes. The new film’s box office chances are much greater, of course, but aside from Bardem’s charisma, it’s hard to see it as an awards contender in San Sebastian competition.
From the disgruntled ex-employee who heckles his ex-boss every day in front of the factory to the pretty intern who uses her seductive powers to secure a manager’s position, it’s hard to imagine this as anything beyond light entertainment for the non-working classes. And what to say of the cool, disenchanted foreman Khalid, who ends up promoted and part of the show when an “Excellence in Business” committee comes around to the factory to award the owner Julio Blanco (Bardem) another award?
These unsettling plot elements are actually compounded by the smarmy but endearing title character, since Bardem’s ingratiatingly funny performance becomes our point of reference through which to view his less spell-binding employees. Having inherited a smallish factory that manufactures scales and balances, he reminds the workers that he treats them as “one big family” when they are anything but. Yet the family metaphor remains Blanco’s own illusion, too, and one that gets him in hot water. The jokes revolve around the idea that business and family don’t mix, ho hum.
The big event he’s preparing for is an evaluation of the factory which will lead to a coveted trophy on his living room wall. So he’s infuriated when a workman who gets the sack rebels and sets up a camper in front of the factory, from where he shouts slogans into a megaphone with his two small kids. The man is furious and can’t be negotiated away.
In contrast to his intransigence with the fired ex-employee, Blanco is oddly indulgent with his production head Miralles (Manolo Solo), who screws up one job after another. He turns out to be Blanco’s best and oldest friend, one he has exploited since they were kids. Their adventures spying on Miralles’ wife are less than original and slow the story down.
Since the married Blanco has just dismissed an attractive blonde employee who throws her arms around him and tearfully whispers “I love you” on her way out the door, he is a free man and ready to take a second look at a new batch of interns. A tall, provocative redhead (Almudena Amor) catches his eye, and returns it. He only learns that she, too, is family after a quick trip to bed compromises him, leading to the final ironic complications. Audiences may leave the movie with a smile, but a little thought will show that Blanco’s slap on the wrist hardly balances out (the scale metaphor) with what he does to the heckling pest across the road. Where’s that scale when you need it? Maybe the imbalance is a deliberate ploy in de Aranoa’s screenplay, but most viewers are going to miss the irony.
Director, screenplay: Fernando Leon de Aranoa
Cast: Javier Bardem, Manolo Solo, Almudena Amor, Oscar de la Fuente, Sonia Almarcha, Fernando Albizu, Tarik Rmili, Rafa Castejon, Celso Bugallo, Martin Paez, Yael Belicha, Mara Guil, Nao Albet, Maria de Nati
Producers: Fernando Leon de Aranoa, Jaume Roures, Javier Mendez
Executive producers: Patricia de Muns, Pilar de Hera, Laura Fdez Espeso, Eva Garrido, Marisa Fdez Armenteros
Cinematography: Pau Esteve Birba
Art director: César Macarron
Costume design: Fernando Garcia
Editing: Vanessa Marimbert
Music: Zeltia Montes
Sound design: Pelayo Gutiérrez
Production companies: Reposado, The Media Pro Studio, Basculus Blanco
World sales: MK2
Venue: San Sebastian Film Festival (competition)
In Spanish
120 minutes
