How to Get Ahead in Advertising

Dir: Bruce Robinson

1989

*****

Bruce Robinson will always be best known for 1987’s Withnail & I but in 1989 he made a film that I believe is just as good, the brilliant How to Get Ahead in Advertising. Richard E. Grant’s Withnail is up there as one of the greatest British characters ever written and performed but I would argue that Grant’s performance as unstable advertising executive Denis Dimbleby Bagley is just as good, if not better. Richard E. Grant is loved for his energy and his slick delivery - How to Get Ahead in Advertising plays wonderfully to these two strengths. The title is a pun, the film is a surreal and maddening look at the sorry world of Advertising and also about a man who grows/develops a second head. The French are known for their wonderful farces but us Brits have made a few exceptional ones ourselves and How to Get Ahead in Advertising is the best example I can think of. Advertising executive Denis Dimbleby Bagley is on the edge, working hard and under pressure. His wife (played by Rachel Ward) is sympathetic but his boss (Richard Wilson) is tough, and he finally suffers a nervous breakdown while making an advert for a pimple cream. Withnail & I was semi-autobiographical, while How to Get Ahead in Advertising is Robinson getting the 1980s – and everything he hated about them – off his chest. Bagley is essentially having a crisis of conscience about the ethics of advertising – something depicted as glamorous but something that is, in truth, utterly soulless. His crisis leads to mania. He then suddenly develops a boil on his right shoulder that eventually comes to life with a face and voice. The voice of the boil, although uncredited, is that of Bruce Robinson. The boil takes a cynical and unscrupulous view of the advertising profession in contrast to Bagley's new-found ethical concerns. Eventually, Bagley decides to have the boil removed in hospital but moments before he is taken into the operating room, the boil quickly grows into a replica of Bagley's head (only with a moustache) and covers Bagley's original head, asking doctors to lance it, which is done since nobody has noticed the switch from left to right nor the new moustache. Bagley, now with the boil head, moustache, and personality (the movie's third personification from Grant after the stressed executive and the raving lunatic) returns home to celebrate his wedding anniversary, with the original head merely resembling a boil on his left shoulder. The "boil" eventually withers but doesn't die, yet Bagley resumes his advertising career rejuvenated and ruthless, although without his wife, who decides to leave his new cruel persona. Its as funny and as dark as a dark and funny film could be. It’s glorious. Bruce Robinson seems to take no prisoner and gets his views across loud and clear via Richard E. Grant’s riotously intense performance. It is by far the best performance of someone having a nervous breakdown in the history of cinema in my opinion. It’s a riot. Robinson has made very few films even though he has an amazing talent and much to say but, like advertising, the film industry is a dark and nasty place. I read an interview with him once where he recalled going to an industry party where his own agent went up to him and asked who he was and what he did. I’ve always wanted to see him do a film about the movie industry but I wonder whether anyone would back him. I think this is Robinson and Grant at the height of their careers but the film hasn’t traveled and is criminally overlooked in the UK. The supporting cast is great too, with an early performance from Sean Bean and my personal favorite (although you never see him any more) Tony Slattery. The performances are amazing but then they had to be as the script is amazing and everything said rings true. Hows this for a slice of dialogue: “We're living in a shop. The world is one magnificent fucking shop. And if it hasn't got a price tag, it isn't worth having. There is no greater freedom than freedom of choice, and that's the difference between you and me, boil. I was brought up to believe in that, and so should you, but you don't. You don't want freedom, do you? You don't even want roads. God, I never want to go on another train as long as I live! Roads represent a fundamental right of man to have access to the good things in life. Without roads, established family favorites would become elitist delicacies. Potter's soap would be for the few. There'd be no more tea bags, no instant potatoes, no long life cream. There'd be no aerosols. Detergents would vanish. So would tinned spaghetti and baked beans with six frankfurters. The right to smoke one's chosen brand would be denied. Chewing gum would probably disappear, so would pork pies. Foot deodorizers would climax without hope of replacement. When the hydrolyzed monosodium glutamate reserves run out, food would rot in its packets. Jesus Christ, there wouldn't be any more packets! Packaging would vanish from the face of the Earth. But worst of all, there'd be no more cars. And more than anything, people love their cars. They have a right to them. They have to sweat all day in some stinking factory making disposable cigarette lighters or everlasting Christmas trees, by Christ, they're entitled to them! They're entitled to any innovation technology brings. Whether it's ten percent more of it or fifteen percent off of it, they're entitled to it! They're entitled to one of four important new ingredients! Why should anyone have to clean their teeth without important new ingredients? Why the hell shouldn't they have their CZT? How dare some smutty Marxist carbunkle presume to deny them it? They love their CZT! They want it, they need it, they positively adore it! And by Christ, while I've got air in my body they're going to get it! They're going to get it bigger and brighter and better. I'll put CZT in their margarine if necessary, shove vitamins in their toilet rolls. If happiness means the whole world standing on a double layer of foot deodorizers, I, Bagley, will see that they get them! I'll give them anything and everything they want! By God, I will! I shall not cease, till Jerusalem is builded here, on England's green and pleasant land!” Now imagine Richard E Grant naked and stuffing chicken down a toilet while screaming. Welcome to How to Get Ahead in Advertising, sit down and immerse yourself, you won’t regret it!