Movie Review: Nine To Five (1980)

A workplace feminist comedy, Nine To Five features an infectious sense of fun and a trio of terrific leading ladies having a blast.

Judy Bernly (Jane Fonda) is entering the workforce after raising a family and being abandoned by her cheating husband Dick (Lawrence Pressman). Judy joins Consolidated Companies as a secretary and makes friends with her supervisor Violet (Lily Tomlin), who has hit a low glass ceiling and is being bypassed for a promotion into management by her insufferable boss Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman). Meanwhile Hart is lusting after his buxom assistant Doralee (Dolly Parton). She repeatedly fends him off, but Hart nevertheless ruins her reputation by spreading rumours that they are having an affair.

Judy, Violet and Doralee finally conclude that Hart is a "sexist, egotistical, lying, hypocritical bigot", and over wine and a joint take turns fantasizing about revenge. But when their dreams of retribution suddenly and unintentionally seem to come true, the ladies first believe that they may have committed murder, then have to deal with a hostage situation while keeping the office functioning.

Financed by Fonda's production company and propelled by Parton's infectious hit title song, Nine To Five has serious fun with an important topic. Directed and co-written by Colin Higgins, the film takes on gender politics at the office with a smile, exposing the hypocrisy of a hostile environment where women are fully dependent upon and completely held back. The film is brisk, full of snappy one-liners and unafraid to speak its mind.

Sexism, harassment, no opportunities for advancement, the lack of flex time, and the absence of a daycare all make their way into the story. But Nine To Five succeeds because it avoids any sense of preachiness, keeping the mood light and allowing the issues to speak for themselves. The revenge theme hints at the boiling rage, and the missed opportunities where women's energies are burned on lamenting lack of fulfillment rather than contributing to corporate achievement.

The three women's fantasy sequence is a turning point from reality-based comedy to something resembling outright farce, and the film's second half is fully invested in a false murder sub-plot, complete with a dead body stuffed into car trunk, followed by a wild and prolonged hostage taking premise. Nine to Five strides into wacky cartoon territory, and does so triumphantly but with some compromise in the focus on the core social message.

Fonda, Tomlin and Parton create an excellent trio. Fonda as Judy is the more serious debutante into the working world, and she provides the fresh eyes into the perverted office environment. Tomlin as Violet is the veteran sufferer, perfecting her frustrated eye-rolling at the abject unfairness of a male-dominated world. Parton, in her film debut, is a revelation, finding the perfect role as the sassy target of out-of-control harassment who fights back but loses the reputational battle anyway.

Dabney Coleman's career highlight as Franklin M. Hart Jr. contributes immeasurably to the film's tone. There is nothing subtle about Hart, he is a first order management boor, and Coleman plays him as a villain worthy of lusty booing and fully deserving of the female blowback finally directed his way. Sterling Hayden makes a late appearance as the firm's chairman of the board, and Elizabeth Wilson adds to the jungle politics in the role of treacherous spy.

Humorous and ridiculous, Nine To Five delivers a prescient message: women will be innovative and successful, whether inside the office or outside it. The men will just have to decide if they are talent partners or targets.

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Movie Review: Steel Magnolias (1989)

A dramatic comedy with an engaging ensemble cast, Steel Magnolias is a talkfest that covers a lot of ground, but rarely achieves any significant forward momentum.

In small town Louisiana, Shelby Eatonton (Julia Roberts) suffers from severe diabetes, but is preparing to get married. Her mother Mary Lynn, better known as M'Lynn (Sally Field), is close to her daughter, and worries that Shelby's life may be in danger if she ever decides to try and have children. M'Lynn's friends are the town's hairdresser Truvy (Dolly Parton), the local wealthy sophisticate Clairee (Olympia Dukakis), and the slightly off-kilter, always frazzled Louisa, better known as Ouiser (Shirley Maclaine).

Truvy is married to the frequently absent Spud (Sam Shepard), while Ouiser has a long-running feud with M'Lynn's husband Drum (Tom Skerritt). A newcomer to the group is the young Annelle (Daryl Hannah), who gets a job at Truvy's salon despite a seemingly dark past. The women spend a lot of time talking and helping Shelby prepare for her big day. After marrying Jackson (Dylan McDermott), Shelby does indeed get pregnant, and delivers a healthy child. Meanwhile, Annelle goes through a wild period before finding religion. And suddenly, M'Lynn's world is rocked by tragedy.

Steel Magnolias is an adaptation of the play by Robert Harling, which he wrote to help cope with the real-life loss of his sister to diabetes. And the movie carries a sincere heart, depicting real women coping with the joys and tears of the real world to the best of their abilities, supporting and comforting each other through the bad times, and celebrating the good times together. In between they gossip a lot, poke fun at each other, and talk through all the issues in their lives and throughout the town.

As a women's view of middle class life in a quaint small southern town, there is little that is missing from Steel Magnolias, but the charm of life drifting by is also the film's weakness. Director Herbert Ross cannot find much impetus to push the narrative forward. Other than the central relationship between M'Lynn and Shelby, the rest is just so much fluff, and as the story waits for something to happen, the fluff gets fluffier and grows to fill all the corners of the screen. Truvy, Clairee, Ouiser and Annelle occupy a lot of time and space, but ultimately contribute very little, and their stories are truncated at both ends, their true purpose limited to just being friends of M'Lynn.

Harling and Ross do find success in opening up the play and expanding the set of characters. Outdoor scenes add colour, and many husbands and boys are introduced. Although they inject some testosterone into the flowing rivers of estrogen, Steel Magnolias remains solidly a women-dominated film, the likes of Spud, Drum and Jackson mostly serving as comic relief or dissolving into the furniture.

The cast is uniformly good, Sally Field unleashing a couple of emotional hurricanes towards the end, while Julia Roberts is more understated in facing her challenges. Dolly Parton, Olympia Dukakis and Shirley MacLaine compete for screen time in fairly one-dimensional roles, while Daryl Hannah goes through all sorts of transformations without ever quite being sure what she is doing in the movie. Hannah does, however, hit one high note opposite Field, with the two women standing at the epicentre of M'Lynn's tragedy.

A sweet visit with some great actresses, Steel Magnolias is always pleasant and sometimes poignant, if never profound.

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