Working Girl 1988

For anyone who's ever won. For anyone who's ever lost. And for everyone who's still in there trying.

6.6 / 10   890 vote(s)
R
Comedy Romance Drama

Tess McGill is an ambitious secretary with a unique approach for climbing the ladder to success. When her classy, but villainous boss breaks a leg skiing, Tess takes over her office, her apartment and even her wardrobe. She creates a deal with a handsome investment banker that will either take her to the top, or finish her off for good.

Release Date 1988-12-20
Runtime 1h 54m
Directors Michael Ballhaus, Mike Nichols, Tim Galvin, Michael Haley
Producers Robert Greenhut, Douglas Wick, Laurence Mark
Writer Kevin Wade

Right from the opening bars of Carly Simon's catchy theme tune and the young girls with huge hair on the ferry - I thought this was going to be entertaining. By and large, it is. "Tess" (Melanie Griffith) is fed up working for bosses who just want to sleep with her, so thinks perhaps things will change the she starts working for "Katherine" (Sigourney Weaver). Always open to ideas, this woman gets hold of one of her assistant's ideas and when she injures herself skiing, "Tess" discovers her boss's duplicity and decides to run with her idea herself - involving "Jack" (Harrison Ford) along the way. Turns out this idea has legs - and multi-million dollar ones at that - but as the two begin to mix business and pleasure - we discover that "Jack" has his secrets to keep too! The pace is generally quite good, the characters have plenty to like about them and the film builds nicely to an enjoyable and fitting conclusion. Griffith is on good form here, she has a spirit and charisma that can't help but raise a bit of a smile. Sarandon and Ford both support well, too with the latter content to take more of a charming but back seat role. Alec Baldwin features sparingly as her creep of a boyfriend, and I could have sworn I saw "Cyn" (Joan Cusack) in Culture Club or Dead or Alive! It's maybe a little bit long, but as feel-good films go, this has a decent script, plenty of chemistry and a vindication that worked for me.

CinemaSerf