How to Get Ahead in Advertising
People say advertisers are two-faced; in the case of Denis Dimbleby Bagley (Richard E. Grant), they're more right than they know. How to Get Ahead in Advertising is a black comedy--or should that be "blackhead" comedy--about about a cynical and unscrupulous marketing designer (Denis) who suffers a nervous breakdown while struggling to compose his next disingenuous advertisement by the deadline. In the aftermath, Denis becomes convinced that his stress-induced boil is sentient and threatens to take over his life, confronting him with an existential crisis.
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How to Get Ahead in Advertising sounds the story of a man's slow descent into an absurdist, Kafkaesque nightmare; but on the contrary, Denis would hardly be described as "normal" on the best of days, and is utterly without a moral compass. The film begins with him patronizing a group of his peers, while espousing the maxims of what it takes to be skillful at advertising. He purports that it requires manipulating the audience by preying on their fears with the tenacity of a toothless pit bull. How to Get Ahead in Advertising is a modern riff on "A Christmas Carol" with a dash of body horror; instead of three ghosts, his insecurities and doubts manifest as the cyst-like "devil on his shoulder". Denis is viewed as a paragon in his field; his beady-eyed superior, John Bristol (Richard Wilson), expects him to deliver his most recent opus to hock pimple cream by Monday, despite having no faith in the product. Denis practices canned pitches in his office with all of the authenticity of a three-dollar bill to no avail. He endlessly chain smokes during a lunch with his wife, Julia (Rachel Ward), who worries about the effect his obsessiveness is having on his health. Denis has a revelation on his train ride home, interrupting a banal conversation about the manipulative phrasing used in a recent news headline. He concludes that the media--and by extension, his career--is an unholy abomination that is a plague upon civilization, and begins a campaign to extricate himself from his erstwhile profession. Denis's bizarre means of purging anything related to advertising is interpreted by Julia--not without cause--as the onset of a psychotic break, reaching its zenith one morning when Denis sees his boil smile at him in the mirror and talk to him; he subsequently runs screaming through their elegant country estate, half-naked and with Dijon mustard smeared across his shoulder (a misinterpreted remedy for the boil). The boil--voiced by writer and director Bruce Robinson--mumbles about going to Paris and about a regular character from Denis's advertising skits named "Barbara Simmons", making it sound like Denis is the one who is spouting gibberish. Denis finally consults with a psychiatrist (John Shrapnel), whose diagnosis is that the "boil"--who no one else but Denis actually sees--is a representation of his repressed fears and anxieties, leading to surgery to extricate the noisome growth. Of course all does not go according to plan, and the boil establishes dominance over Denis, assuming his identity like a doppelganger, complete with "evil twin" facial hair.
How to Get Ahead in Advertising marks a reunion between filmmaker Bruce Robinson and star Richard E. Grant, who previously worked together on Withnail & I, and the two films shares many similarities. Grant once again plays an eloquent yet manic protagonist with an acerbic wit, always in the throes of a great breakdown. The diction in How to Get Ahead in Advertising is clever and sharp--almost Shakespearean at times. Denis hurls expressive insults effortlessly, like how he calls his troublesome growth a "carbuncle"--an archaic yet accurate word which carries a certain poetic cadence to it. Withnail was an artist who hid his inner pain behind vitriolic cynicism, but Denis is a soulless cog in the consumer machine whose brief flash of humanity is snuffed out by whatever forces of darkness pull the strings in our world--even his own body turns against him. Much of How to Get Ahead in Advertising has Denis railing against the likes of Bristol and what he represents--a consumerist culture that values convenience over consciousness, and perverts "freedom of choice" by selling an array of meaningless products as a part of an empty lifestyle. Denis cruelly mocks Rachel's friend, Penny (Jacqueline Tong), for being a pseudo-vegan, and shows no remorse in exploiting his advertising forum to delude the public into buying products that are not only unnecessary, but don't even do what they are supposed to do. (In Denis's eyes, that would keep consumers from consuming, which all they're good for. For all of the film's deliberate shots showing Denis's boil as a face on his shoulder, no one else hears or sees it as he does. Everyone is convinced that Denis is throwing his voice and suffering from the after effects of his breakdown; it's more likely that the audience is sharing this amoral madman's warped view of reality instead. Denis fights a war with himself, and the resistance is clearly outgunned against an evil empire--represented by the boil--that is already a slave to consumerism. When Denis delivers his final rant--stealing from Gone with the Wind--it is a bitter pill; evil has triumphed and is already selling the audience on why consumerism is beautiful, and why opposing it only leads to madness. During his most desperate plea to Julia--and the audience--he rants into a video camera about a "holocaust of hamburgers", prognosticating about the dangers of tearing down the rainforest with his face plunged into a cardboard wine carton that making him look like a talking head on a television set. Despite the validity of his concerns, the bigger question is whether Denis actually believes anything he's spouting, or if this isn't just an elaborate lie he's sold to himself, divesting him from responsibility for failing to market some pimple cream by any means necessary--even if it costs him his sanity.
Recommended for: Fans of a biting farce that combines black comedy with reproachful social commentary about consumerism--with a dash of body horror for good measure. Richard E. Grant anchors every scene in How to Get Ahead in Advertising, and watching him implode (and explode) throughout it is magnetic in this sardonic condemnation of the soul-crushing amorality inherent in advertising.
How to Get Ahead in Advertising marks a reunion between filmmaker Bruce Robinson and star Richard E. Grant, who previously worked together on Withnail & I, and the two films shares many similarities. Grant once again plays an eloquent yet manic protagonist with an acerbic wit, always in the throes of a great breakdown. The diction in How to Get Ahead in Advertising is clever and sharp--almost Shakespearean at times. Denis hurls expressive insults effortlessly, like how he calls his troublesome growth a "carbuncle"--an archaic yet accurate word which carries a certain poetic cadence to it. Withnail was an artist who hid his inner pain behind vitriolic cynicism, but Denis is a soulless cog in the consumer machine whose brief flash of humanity is snuffed out by whatever forces of darkness pull the strings in our world--even his own body turns against him. Much of How to Get Ahead in Advertising has Denis railing against the likes of Bristol and what he represents--a consumerist culture that values convenience over consciousness, and perverts "freedom of choice" by selling an array of meaningless products as a part of an empty lifestyle. Denis cruelly mocks Rachel's friend, Penny (Jacqueline Tong), for being a pseudo-vegan, and shows no remorse in exploiting his advertising forum to delude the public into buying products that are not only unnecessary, but don't even do what they are supposed to do. (In Denis's eyes, that would keep consumers from consuming, which all they're good for. For all of the film's deliberate shots showing Denis's boil as a face on his shoulder, no one else hears or sees it as he does. Everyone is convinced that Denis is throwing his voice and suffering from the after effects of his breakdown; it's more likely that the audience is sharing this amoral madman's warped view of reality instead. Denis fights a war with himself, and the resistance is clearly outgunned against an evil empire--represented by the boil--that is already a slave to consumerism. When Denis delivers his final rant--stealing from Gone with the Wind--it is a bitter pill; evil has triumphed and is already selling the audience on why consumerism is beautiful, and why opposing it only leads to madness. During his most desperate plea to Julia--and the audience--he rants into a video camera about a "holocaust of hamburgers", prognosticating about the dangers of tearing down the rainforest with his face plunged into a cardboard wine carton that making him look like a talking head on a television set. Despite the validity of his concerns, the bigger question is whether Denis actually believes anything he's spouting, or if this isn't just an elaborate lie he's sold to himself, divesting him from responsibility for failing to market some pimple cream by any means necessary--even if it costs him his sanity.
Recommended for: Fans of a biting farce that combines black comedy with reproachful social commentary about consumerism--with a dash of body horror for good measure. Richard E. Grant anchors every scene in How to Get Ahead in Advertising, and watching him implode (and explode) throughout it is magnetic in this sardonic condemnation of the soul-crushing amorality inherent in advertising.