Cheaters Never Prosper and the Meek Shall Inherit

What hurts Working Girl? The entire relationship between Tess and Jack.

The entire film is an evolution of sorts. Everything goes through an important change. Some things do so even after blossoming prematurely, for instance- the relationship between Tess and Katherine. Tess goes to work for Katherine fairly abruptly in the rhythm of the movie. So now we're getting used to meeting Katherine, off guard. But the movie doesn't force us to work from the ground-up with her. Though Tess seems to be a little naive in her people skills and trusts Katherine a little too much simply because she's a working woman just like Tess, we know that Katherine's no good. We see very clearly that she is opportunistic and an elitist. She's also quietly rude, which is a quality that two-faced people exhibit once they have power. These are things you might not notice if you were working for her, plus add to that the fact that Tess has been told this is her last chance to work in business. Then she discovers pretty early in their relationship that Katherine is not to be trusted. And she is not destroyed because of Katherine's betrayal. Rather she is compelled to take forward steps to implement her own plan.

Tess has an interesting relationship with her best friend, Cynthia, as well. We just expect her to be the cliched version of the best friend, and there are plenty of incarnations of this in popular movies. But while Tess is off on her adventure, of sorts, in the corporate world, Cynthia stays behind to pick up the pieces of Tess's fragile ex-boyfriend. So when Cynthia gives Tess a reality check, it turns out Tess cannot make Cynthia understand where she is. And they have to part ways for the time being because Cynthia is in the same place that Tess was in at the beginning of the movie, only without the notion that there is anything else but her low-level existence as a secretary. Some of the best scenes in the movie all revolve around Tess's relationship with her old boyfriend, Mick. They are the greatest moments of truth, all of which challenge her feelings of self-worth. They challenge her to define them and live by them, so that her future actions will either reflect her confidence or doubts in her abilities. In the last bit of conflict between the two, he places a radically unfair ultimatum upon her, and she says to him, "I'm not a steak, you can't just order me." And it is a scene like this that makes us realize what the movie has going for it and what it could have been.

Ultimately, though it has some really strong points, it doesn't equal a strong whole. Rather it's a full, you know, 3-part type act, that feels like it's only the beginning of the beginning. And for it's running time, it should have gotten to this point earlier in the film. During the scenes that became devoted to the growing relationship between Tess and Jack (or the relationship that doesn't grow), the film shifts into neutral and loses all it's steam. It just begins and it really doesn't mature enough for him to even be able to forgive her for deceiving him, he just barely reaches that point where he's able to finally understand her business strategy, and be charmed by it, realizing that that kind of bravery can be found in her contribution to him if they were to embark on more than just a business deal. He can only say to himself that she didn't deceive him for her own personal gain, and that with her it actually is a two-way street and she does care about the other people putting effort into the deal.

The business deal in this story, the one we only learn about as Tess is first revealing it to Katherine, may be exactly what gets in the way of a real relationship between Tess and Jack. Every small struggle and ordeal Tess goes through to succeed relies on the deal, therefore it's possible the deal itself takes up too much of the movie's time. The biggest problem overall with Tess and Jack's 'falling in love' is the fact that the most we ever see of what their time together means, is summed up by him in a really annoying scene that basically just goes through one-night-stand-with-benefits cliches. To him at this stage, their relationship has all the passion and appeal of "lust and tequila". And in that scene, where the most annoying thing just might be how Melanie Griffith giggles unexpectedly at the end of their conversation, the movie blows right by their chance of developing this into any kind of valid partnership. Because for Jack to comment on the events of that evening as though we had just been watching a lame erotic film of some sort, the foundation of the characters changes in a way that makes it impossible for the ending to legitimately unfold as it does.

Look at what it eventually becomes - the most depth we ever get in a moment between the two is the story of how he got a scar and told everyone it was from a barfight. Everything his character does is desperately crude or for lack of spine. Until of course he comes to her rescue, continuing to stand by her side after Katherine gets wind of her plans. In a scene that also defies the nature of the character of Trask, the man who is said to "know everything", who apparently knows enough to trust Tess's instinct but abruptly questions her motives because of a second-rate manipulator like Katherine / if he knew everything, he'd be wise enough to see right through transparent-Katherine, who's not even femme-fatale enough to sucker him in on a level of sexual manipulation. But Jack's only motivation for staying with her would have to be the sex he had with a woman who symbolically he could trust, who wasn't taking advantage of him. In the end, his choice to stick up for her is as inexplicable as how exactly she knows so much about business given the fact that no one she knows is as savvy as she is, and most people who do know her don't know enough about people to take her seriously.

Melanie Griffith is a very gifted actor. When you see her and hear her speak, you might think to yourself; where did she learn to act / who told her she could act? Her strengths don't lie in her voice or her appearance because, while she doesn't exactly have that bod for sin she refers to in the dialog, she is a woman that has to react and her reactions give you the impression that she is this character, which is the most important thing about actors, that they make you believe they are each character they portray. It's a gift because no one can tell where it comes from, without working with her. Sigourney Weaver is the kind of actress who never tries to play a character whom she doesn't look the part of. But she's very classy and strangely beautiful (and where did they come up with that name?), and she's not quite the acquired taste Melanie is. Then, the vastly underrated Joan Cusack puts in some funny time.

Harrison Ford may be a great actor, but you couldn't tell it from this movie. Some of it is that they gave him a lousy part (who looks good with his shirt off). He needed to relate more understanding through this underwritten character. More than anything, he's the hott guy in this movie I think because this as a movie is a turn-on-its-ear of the male-dominated corporate world where the focus is more on people succeeding on a last chance (which is the only thing Tess and Jack's characters have in common). This movie is not predictable, and that is a problem because it's unpredictable due to actions of the characters that are not thought out in terms of writing. This is the level upon which Working Girl is inspirational, it never inspired a film better than it. The real problem of this film is that it's about people and after awhile, it leaves all the characters who shaped the movie behind and doesn't let them take part in forming the ending.

In conclusion, I'd have to say the male characters in the film don't learn anything about the woman's struggle in the business world, which isn't so hot. Then when a guy like Trask says something like, "you shouldn't let your johnson make business decisions", you start to think maybe it's the writer who has only as much compassion for the subject as the supporting characters do. Which even works against the movie's overall message of hope for change. If this is a romantic comedy, I'd have a hard time believing that women saw much appeal in it, beyond it's general sense of respect for women trying really hard to make it in the work force / climb the corporate ladder. The movie starts to drag as soon as Jack becomes part of the plot and then continues on this same path until you have to look at the ending, and instead of saying, "what now?" for Tess, you find yourself saying, "wait a minute, how... ?"