El buen patrón / The Good Boss (2021) – 4/5

Everything in balance

„El buen patrón“ or „The Good Boss“ is a relatively new Spanish live action film from 2021 and it took until 2022 for the movie to reach my country Germany, but I am really glad it finally did. I would not say I really waited for it, but if I did, then the wait would definitely have been worth it. The movie runs for slightly under two hours, so not short, but also not extremely long, and the writer and director is Fernando León de Aranoa and I am a bit surprised that I am not familiar with the name at all because he has also worked in Hollywood already, even if the vast majority of films he made happened in Spain of course. Maybe you could say he is among the more, but not most known Spanish filmmakers right now. With this film here under his belt now, I am sure there is only one direction for him in the future and that would be up. He pretty much always writes the films he directs, but looks like he has also written a lot where he was not in charge of directing. Anyway, he has been on a bit of a break for three or four years now, so it is even a small comeback for him this film and success-wise, it is even a huge comeback. Just look at how the film did with awards bodies, most of all the Goyas, the Spanish Oscars, where it won for Best Film, Best Director and Best Original Screenplay and several other awards including for the lead actor. I will get to him a little later. The quantity of nominations is also so high, it feels almost anybody with more than four lines here was nominated for either supporting or newcomer. The lead actor is of course Javier Bardem, maybe Spain’s best actor at this point and surely one of the most famous and most popular and not only since No Country for Old Men. This film here is a huge showpiece for him. He has good material to work with of course, but I would not say that the character is super baity, even if he is in every single scene of the movie almost. What Bardem does with it though in terms of physical acting and face expressions is truly mesmerizing. Perhaps I am exaggerating a bit here because I have liked the man for a long time, but it’s difficult to imagine that one watches this film and does not become a fan if they weren’t one before that already.

This is called a dark comedy I have seen and I would agree to some extent. I mean the huge drama does not happen before the end and everything before that is not light, but still entertaining somehow and you are also glad you are not there with the characters and that you do not have to face the same struggles like the protagonist most of all. Then again, the longer the film goes, the less likable he becomes. Sure, there are scenes in which you see he tries his best to help his employees like when he brings this headset for one character who is struggling with his ears, but even if this was sweet you have to keep in mind that it is the boss who brought it all on him first by firing the other guy. So it all leads back to him and he treated the guy really badly before that anyway. I wonder if the international title „The Good Boss“ is a coincidence that it sounds so similar to „The Good Wife“. I guess it is, after all it is just a literal translation, but nonetheless you can probably find parallels between Bardem’s character here and Chris Noth’s in the series. Or maybe this only came to my mind because I like Chris Noth as well. By the way, this film here was also Spain’s official submission to the Oscars last year. It did make the shortlist, but did not manage the nomination. Pity. I really would have cheered for it and I think it is surely superior to the winner and also the other nominee(s) I have seen so far. But it’s alright. Not scoring the Oscar nomination does not make this a weaker film. It really flew by despite running for way over 100 minutes.

From the comedy perspective, I would say my favorite moment was maybe when we had the security guard out there talk about the wording of the slogans on those signs because he contributed to those, even suggested some. This was hilarious really, how the actor Fernando Albizu (looks a bit like Depardieu) delivered these lines, how they were written, but also how Bardem’s character reacts to what the guard says. I mentioned him earlier with how Bardem’s character treated him and even after he does good with this headset, he also (ab)uses the guard for his plans again later on when he gives him tickets for the opera and at the same time he probably paid the son of another employee and the son’s gang to violently beat up his antagonist near the premises of the company. I mean he tried everything before that to get rid of him, but it is still no justification, even if you also cannot blame him for the tragedy that ensues when said antagonist turns out to be more resilient than expected. But there was some priceless irony when finally those people arrive who evaluate the company and decide if they get the award. I mean everybody he introduces to these people had their own dark story with the boss, no matter if we are talking the young marketing woman, the Arab(?) dude who got promoted or the father of the deceased young man. The idea that they are all his sons was really taken to the next level there in terms of irony. I must say this was a pretty nice ending, also then the final shot with the static camera when we see he got the award and we could wonder if he learnt something from it, but the only reason he was crying or close to crying was that he enjoyed the appreciation so much and pretty much forgot about all that happened before that already.

As for the young woman who turns out to be the daughter of an old friend of the protagonist and he does not remember her initially, I was not too won over, but this also maybe had to do with me finding the other female apprentice(s) much more interesting and attractive. The actress did fine though. In the end, she did not get the romance she was looking for and it seemed she was over it with the middle finger moment, but she makes the most of it all for herself and scores a solid position in the company. Looking at the way in which another apprentice reacted to the boss at the very beginning, it was probably not the first time that he had an affair with one of these young women. He is charming, there is no denying about that. The score by the way also won a Goya. Not bad, even if music-wise I mostly remember the inclusion of a Michael Bublé song here because I kinda like the singer, even if I am not entirely sure how well this song fit the occasion. I think it was played during the opera sequence, so one of the most crucial moments the film had to offer. I personally thought then that from one perspective the boss fixed it all for himself, at least what he had on his mind, but you could see that further problems arise, be it with his affair or the old man who might have suspected then that Bardem’s character had something to do with what his son did that night. You do not have to be a genius to understand that if you see with how he made sure the guard would not be present. Also, one very nice little reference for me was when another character admired the trophies Bardem’s character got for his work/company and he says something like only the Oscar is missing. Well, this film did not win the Academy Award, but Bardem has one at home and hands down a second win would be fairly overdue by now I think. I hope it will happen at one point. Such a great character actor and he also masters comedy as we see here and this is not a given because we have not seen Bardem in lighter films too many times in the past. Drama of course there were no doubts.

So for me this movie is a huge winner and one of 2021’s finest, one of the best I have seen in 2022. I highly recommend checking it out and what he and his significant other Penélope Cruz have released lately is nothing short of spectacular, even if her role was of course not as dominant as Bardem’s, but more of a trio ensemble piece. But we talked about that film on another occasion. „El buen patrón“ definitely gets a huge thumbs-up from me and positive recommendation and this is a film you do not wanna miss out on. Maybe you will not love it as much as I did if you are not equally big on Bardem, but still enjoy it nonetheless. Cannot see anybody unbiased give less than six stars here out of ten. I have to dig really deep to find criticisms. Maybe towards the end, with some of the stuff that happens after the opera scene and before the company evaluation scene, the film was not at its very best, but this was also rather because everything before that was so entertaining and on such a high-quality level that I felt this way, not because it was bad or anything. On the contrary, Bardem was just as good as he was before that, but the script declined a little bit there. It’s okay, staying on such a high level for two hours is almost impossible. I know it happened in the past that films got submitted for the foreign language feature category to the Oscars one year and scored acting nominations the following year, but I am not sure if it is possible here in terms of regulations. We will see. I would love to see Bardem nominated for his work here though, even if I am sure there is no way he could win the category unfortunately with this portrayal because the character is probably not relevant and important enough. But as I said, the most important thing is not how many awards it wins, but that this film got made and that you get to watch it. It is so worth being seen by many. Also outside Spain. I guess that is it then. I could surely elaborate on a few more specific scenes and write another almost 2,000 words, but I will leave it at that. So you can also enjoy it all yourself if you haven’t already and don’t have too much information already. It is usually never bad to go into a movie with knowing nothing or at least as little as possible. Big props to Léon de Aranoa, Bardem and everybody else here.