Written by Robert Criss, Photo courtesy of IMDB
“Working Man” is centered around Allery Parkes, a man who continues to work after being laid off from his factory job at New Liberty Plastics in the small town of Orridge.
The premise of this film seems to be a reversal of Mike Judges 1999 romantic comedy, “Office Space,” when the factory shutdown upsets the middle class community while Parkes is the only one who can’t seem to accept the fact he’s at retirement age. One day of unsuccessful job searching later, and Parkes breaks back into the factory with a tin lunchbox and thermos in hand, and gets to work.
“Where are you going, Allory?” a former coworker asks.
“I’m going to work,” Parkes says.
This is one of the longer responses from the monosyllabic leading man. He says even less to his wife Iola, nothing at first to the man helping his cause but in turn speaks for the silent strong types when they get sacked.
The sisyphean task of blue collar workers isn’t stretched to a new realm of absurdity, but rather one that an indie film budget could afford. The film makes humorous scenes of Parkes finding busy work such as rubber banding two flashlights to the frame of his glasses – this is where the movie succeeds. However, rather than going with full silliness, the strength of his denial is rooted predictably in tragedy.
Meanwhile, Iola, becomes the film’s unintentional star when she gives a speech [eerily similar to the one she gave in “Rocky III“] while she cuts coupons to afford his shenanigans. Her character, however, is flattened when she has a “he isn’t the man I married” talk with her throwaway friend. Like a popular graphic t-shirt that reads “Working Class Hero,” the film brandishes a sentiment of simpler times, cheaply. Her inaction is done in lieu of the film’s gimmick.
The last half where he plays a mute Jimmy Hoffa leading a worker’s revolt was an entertaining concept. But it’s downfall lies in the heavy-handed strokes of tying in a last minute script change to the film’s overall message towards mental health awareness.
Director, Robert Jury’s debut is most notably well-intentioned. It gives us enough of true life without upsetting us or challenging our prior beliefs. A question during the Q&A, spoke to a growing fear of mine in what I call “The Green Book Effect” – the reception of the film is unfairly positive due to a tired structure of unlikely duos. You know it. Take a broken-down white guy and striking it against more sophisticated black guys and hopefully they’ll encounter and properly defend enough social issues to get to the Oscars.
