Mahil Senathirajah
By Mahil Senathirajah
Directed by Fernando León de Aranoa
120 min – Spain
Contemporary World Cinema – Subtitled
Shortlisted for Academy Awards Best International Feature Film, Spain
The Good Boss is an office and relationship dark comedy that follows the travails of Blanco, the paternalist head of a factory that manufactures weigh scales. It’s an enjoyable genre film that plays with the conventions and has a witty script. However, it’s biggest treat is Javier Bardem who delivers a sly, finely calibrated comedic performance. Given he portrayed the embodiment of evil in No Country for Old Men, the film shows his range. He does things with his face (on which the camera lingers) that are just funny.
The plot threads are the arrival of a business awards committee, the relationship collapse of Blanco’s key manager, a fired employee who conducts a one-man protest from across the street and his own inadvertent affair with the daughter of a colleague. The threads come together in a pretty rollicking final act.
The film’s central psychological insight is that we change who we are in a relationship based on who is looking at us and, therefore, can’t truly understand who someone is. In the film, this is cited as paralleling the Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle in physics. I think it’s actually supposed to be Schrodinger’s cat (or maybe a mix of both) but it’s super nerdy to know that.
If you are looking for some fun with a sociological edge, the Good Boss might fit the bill. It plays again on Thursday at 2 pm at the Arlington for free. The film is shortlisted for the Academy Awards as Spain’s submission. In Spanish with subtitles.
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