Last night’s film was ‘HOW TO TO GET AHEAD IN ADVERTISING’ from 1989, directed by Bruce ‘Withnail & I’ Robinson and starring an arguably never-better Richard E Grant, ably supported by a splendid cast. (Including Richard Wilson and a fantastic Rachel Ward, ‘Darling, why are you putting frozen chickens down the lavatory?’)
I remember renting this film a couple of times on VHS when it was new, at a guess I’d say I haven’t watched it for 16 or 17 years. However, I’m a rather older and (possibly) a bit wiser now, so I got a lot more out of it.
The target of the film is television advertising (as being 1989, the internet and social media weren’t a thing), although it’s incredibly easy to imagine the themes and narrative being transplanted to the present day with depressing ease.
The tale is told through Grant’s character Dennis Bagley, a highly successful and very well paid advertising executive who can sell anything to anyone, by preying on their fears and desires, and if those fears and desires don’t exist, creating them and then preying on them. (An early presentation to budding executives makes the immorality of his profession crystal clear.)
Unfortunately for him, he’s hit a total writer’s block trying to come up with a campaign for a new pimple cream, (‘Of course it doesn’t fucking work, nothing does’), to the extent that he developers a massive ugly boil on his shoulder, and this leads to a breakdown and epiphany as he denounces the world of advertising as evil, and pledges to devote his life to fighting it. However, the darker side of his personality isn’t going to take this lying down, and the boil on his shoulder starts to grow and develop a persona of its own, much to the distress of his wife….. (There’s a clue in the film’s title.)
I must stress that this is a fantastically written satirical comedy first, and a searing social commentary second, with many genuine LOL moments, however, I’d say that the twenty years since its original release have given its ‘message’ considerably MORE clout than it had at the end of the 1980s (when it was bang on the money too, by the way). There are a couple of pretty overt ‘speeches’ but IMO the film more than earns them.
In a way, it’s almost like it predicted where things were going to go with social media engineering, tailored news feeds, targeted advertising and suchlike - of course none of this existed in 1989 but the film sets its stall out in such a fashion as to leave us in no doubt that where we are now is the inevitable end result of the course we were on.
This is a brilliant film, directed with admirable verve, splendidly written and allowed to soar via a series of memorable performances from all, but notably from Grant who effectively plays three different parts in the film, each of which is magnificent.
It’s very, very funny, but also a little bit scary, because it feels like it knew exactly where we were going…..
905/1000
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