How to Get Ahead in Advertising (1989)

Just to illustrate Black_Rider's depth of critical thought (or lack thereof), I'd like to point out that there are more trees in the U.S. now than there were in colonial times because the country is about 10 times as large now (thanks to native genocide and the unprovoked invasion of Mexico, among other things). That's one essential point of How to Get Ahead in Advertising: capitalism isn't about products, it's about selling. The drive for profit favors high-risk, short-term oriented business strategies. Businesses can't afford to think in the long term, or a more irresponsible competitor will undercut them. Businesses centered around rapidly shrinking natural resources such as the paper, lumber, fishing and oil industries are going to keep selling their products as fast as they can until they become so rare (i.e. depleted) that there's no longer a market for them. Then they'll either go belly up or move on to a more profitable market. But the market on a whole is unconcerned with matters like preserving enough forests to allow us to keep breathing, its only directive is to continue the exponential acceleration of its growth. As the movie points out, this ever-increasing growth of industry has to be supported by increased consumption, which means the all-pervasive coercion of advertising doing its damnedest to convince us we need things we don't to solve problems we didn't know we had.

This movie is a favorite, both for the pure entertainment of a captivating fantasy and the razor-sharp screeds against commodity culture. It's not simple-minded leftist sloganeering; although it's clearly hyperbolic, the underlying critique is, in my opinion, quite sophisticated. Although I love Withnail and I, I'd have to say I get more out of this film.

Fmovies: Its a brave, scathingly funny film that might be an acquired taste. This one definitely needs a memorable quotes section!! For a film made so long ago, its quite an accurate and eerie depiction of what the PR industry has mutated into...

How to Get Ahead in Advertising

The best way to get ahead in advertising is to know the devil.

Unfortunately, since the frazzled ad man in this comedy isn't acquitted with Lucifer, he will have to get a head literally.

With a growing concern over the ethical nature of his profession, ad executive Bagley (Richard E. Grant) becomes mentally unhinged.

While struggling to come up with a slogan for a zit cream, his mania is compounded by the appearance of a pustule on his shoulder that has begun to speak to him.

In addition to the power of verbalization, over time, the abnormal abscess develops a mouth, eyes and a face, which is strikingly similar to his own, save for the moustache.

A stimulating and surreal British satire, How To Get Ahead in Advertising is a paradigm of the psychological mindset needed to survive in marketing.

Furthermore, having two heads means there's always someone to make-out with. (Green Light)

How to Get Ahead in Advertising fmovies. In Withnail & I, Bruce Robinson made one of the funniest films there is. Therefore it's always going to be hard for anything else he's made to equal his debut. However, in How to Get Ahead in Advertising he comes mighty close.

The reason why Robinson's second film fails to match Withnail & I is because at times it becomes too preachy. There are some great speeches in the film; some wonderful digs at consumerism, but occasionally it descends into uninteresting ranting. Yeah consumerism can turn us into unthinking automatons, and yeah big business is greedy, but you don't really need to point it out so blatantly. We already know this. The film works much better when illustrates the BS or when it jabs at it. It doesn't need to get on its soapbox.

One of my favourite bits in the film is when Bagley (Richard E. Grant) – a cocky advertising executive who suddenly loses his magic touch when he has to sell boil cream – is listening to a bunch of idiots talking about a newspaper article. As a person who makes a living out of lying, he's appalled that they believe what the press tells them. They then begin to argue (there's a great bit when an Irish priest insists that a woman in a vice den had peanut butter smeared across her tits; it was in the paper so it must be true) and the conversation quickly turns to the boil cream that Bagley has become obsessed with. "They're incurable, all of them. I know that and so does everybody else. Until they get one. Then the rules suddenly change." And then he has a dig at the priest. "They want to believe something works. He knows that, which is why he gets a good look-in with the dying." It's a great scene; it's funny as hell and it also has a good point to make: people consume less out of desire and more out of a desperate sort of hope, or even fear; they hope this product or that product will fill the hole in their lives. They hope it will be the answer to all their problems. And thankfully this scene refrains from the preaching that affects the latter stages. Instead it goes right for the jugular.

But my favourite scene of all is the one with the psychiatrist – Bagley has quit his job and developed a hideous boil of his own, one that talks to him and one that has a face. He's talking to the quack with a big bandage on his shoulder. He rants for a while about the way advertisers have ruined television, and then all of a sudden, after silence, the boil speaks. The way it's presented in the film, the boil (at first) has a separate voice to Bagley's. He's not portrayed as Gollum with a satanic pimple; he's not talking to himself. But at the same time you're never really sure whether you're seeing things from Bagley's perspective. He's gone totally crazy, so he may very well be the one saying all this crap. Plus the boil only speaks when Bagley's not looking the other person in the face. But what I love about the scene is the filth the boil speaks and Grant's reactions. His hysteria is hilarious (there's another magnificent bit of hysteria in the film – when the boil first 'speaks', Bagley is so shocked that he runs to the kitchen, shaking and spazzing like he's got St Vitus' dance. Grant is amazing at working himself up into a lather). And then the boil asks Bagley to tell the shrink about his grandfather. "My grandfather was caught molesting a wallaby in a private zoo in 1919." "A wallaby?" "It may have been a kangaroo. I

I was so drunk the first time I saw the film, arriving very late at night, that I could not believe such a work had ever been produced. I searched for the original title for years, and recommended it widely. Later, when I got in touch with advertising and marketing professionals, I understood that any absurdity in the movie was only apparent. Indeed, it should be exhibited to every student considering an ad career. I still do not know whether it became a cult movie or not, but it certainly is very special for me. The inner conflicts that Bagley is thrown into, excellent lines thorough the movie, inspired camera placements, a certain do-it-yourself look, these things were perfectly blended to create a very intelligent work (with the exact amount of weirdness). Simply astonishing.

If you want nuance, you'll not find it here, subtlety, pah!!! No, it's laid on with a shovel as advertising executive Richard E Grant discovers advertising is more shallow than a paddling pool, and like said pool, if a toddler was unable to contain a lavatorial need, full of....well,you know what! The trouble is, although we see Grant having his breakdown, becoming obsessive and growing a boil which becomes his alter-ego, we do not see his journey, he's dubbed a success by everyone, but we do not see him succeed. We merely witness the repercussions of his desultory realisation that he's been part of the problem, rather than the solution.

The idea of the talking boil is fun, but the scriptwriter/director didn't know whether to make it surreal, knockabout or farce, in the end sticking to what he perceives as satire. I'd have liked the themes to have been developed more - together with the two differing characters within the same body. We each see thousands of commercials on television, commercialisation is everywhere, referees and umpires have ads on their sleeves, I'm expecting the police to have sponsors' names on their trousers when they finally come to get me.

This needed a little more subtlety, more comedy with the beautiful wife, who seemed discomforted by having sex with the brash alter-ego - that could have produced an amusing scene or three.

It's much better that Robert Altman's unsuccessful parody of fashion, Pret-a-Porter, but uses a sledgehammer to lance a boil.