Houdini's Magic Movie Ticket

Today I watched the "Working Girl: Backstory," and about 40 minutes of the film. I've seen parts before, but never the whole thing. However, I saw enough in the Backstory to know how it turns out.

There is a pretty powerful cast here: Harrison Ford, Sigourney Weaver, Melanie Griffith, Alec Baldwin, Joan Cusack, and Kevin Spacey (in a small role). It was neat seeing how they all looked in 1988. Joan Cusack looked especially different.

I wondered if Melanie's character would have succeeded had things not happened just so. I sometimes find myself rooting for a character in a show or movie to such an extent that if it seems they succeed through pure chance, I'll try to justify how they might have won some other way, just in case.

In "Working Girl," Melanie wants to get ahead. You can tell because she went to night school for five years, and the theme of the movie keeps coming back to highlight her desire to shine.

One day her boss sets her up with sleazy Spacey. She thinks she's applying for a new job, but Spacey only sees her as a one night stand (it would seem). Melanie gets back at her boss, but then needs reassignment, and is placed as the secretary to Weaver. So right there, if her old boss hadn't set her up, she'd never have gotten put in the position to get ahead.

Under Weaver, Melanie comes up with a brilliant idea. Weaver tells her it's a no-go, but secretly plans to use it. Weaver breaks her leg skiing. Again, chance intervenes and Melanie finds out about Weaver's plans while she's still in the hospital.

I hope that she would have found some way to get ahead had those opportunities not been placed in her path. I agree, the film does teach us to seize opportunities as best we can, but sometimes we've also got to make our own when they don't spontaneously occur.

In spite of the chance factor, I think the film is great. And the ending is positive, which I love. It's great to see someone defy the odds and prove her detractors wrong.

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