Bruce Robinson’s farcical assault on the advertising industry is driven by the off-the-wall work of Richard E. Grant
Following on from their recent release of Withnail and I, the Criterion Collection continues to explore the peculiar talents of writer/director Bruce Robinson and actor Richard E. Grant with How to Get Ahead in Advertising, a film that swaps 1960s countercultural malaise for the full-blown consumerist delirium of 1980s Britain. The result is part surreal satire, part body horror, part corporate takedown, all anchored by a off-the-wall turn by its lead.
Grant plays Dennis Bagley, a successful advertising executive whose crisis of conscience begins, of all things, with a pimple cream. Tasked with promoting a product designed to treat boils and blemishes, Bagley spirals into a full-blown existential breakdown. Disgusted by the manipulative foundations of his industry, selling people things they don’t need, or worse, things that might harm them, he tries to sever ties with his former life. He clears out his home, rails against consumerism at dinner parties, and begins to fashion himself as a kind of moral crusader against the capitalist machine. Bagley soon discovers a boil growing on his neck—one that begins to talk, challenge, and eventually supplant him. This grotesque manifestation of his suppressed corporate id becomes both nemesis and successor, pitching products and pithy ad lines with terrifying zeal. As Bagley deteriorates, the boil grows in influence, confidence, and mass until it is in a position to supplant its host.
The metaphor here isn’t subtle. How to Get Ahead in Advertising thrives on a kind of high-pitched absurdity, weaponizing its blunt force satire in a film that’s brims over with vitriolic swipes at Thatcher’s Britain, an era where sweeping privatization and profit came to the fore. The script is heavy on dialogue and Robinson seems less interested in nuance than in detonating every ounce of bile he has for the advertising industry.
At the center of it all is Grant, once again operating at full tilt. His performance is infused with the same manic physicality and venomous wit that made Withnail iconic. He switches between smug confidence, moral outrage, and unhinged mania with frightening speed, and yet manages to anchor the film’s tonal shifts. He even makes even the longer diatribes worth sitting through. Grant lacks a foil beyond himself though, as his wife Julia (Rachel Ward) is little more than a bystander to events.
Visually, Robinson and his team make clever use of prosthetics, Bagley’s transformation is both comical and grotesque, a fitting emblem of the inner rot that comes from selling out your principles for profit. The boil itself becomes the ultimate salesman: brash, confident, and devoid of empathy. As it takes over, it drives home the film’s central thesis, that advertising doesn’t just influence us, it consumes us. Critiques that feel even more pointed today in an era of targeted ads, algorithmic manipulation, and brands that mine our data to better sell us solutions to problems they’ve helped invent.
The Package
The Blu-ray release showcases a new 2K digital restoration, supervised by director of photography Peter Hannan. The image quality is clean, detailed, an free of any signs of over processing. An organic color palette, with stable quality throughout. Having seen this on TV, VHS, and DVD a few times over the years, it’s a really impressive update for the film. The extra features are disappointingly pretty sparse:
- New documentary featuring interviews with writer-director Bruce Robinson and actor Richard E. Grant: The magic of the pairing on screen translates into this documentary, each playing off the other well. Grant in particular bends the interview into something a bit more abstract. Despite this, each adds some great insights about the film (as well as their previous collaboration), with Robinson in particular getting into some political/social commentary that will add plenty of context for non-UK viewers of the film.
- Trailer
- PLUS: An essay by critic David Cairns: Within the liner notes
- New illustration by Jaxon Northon
The Bottom Line
Those seeking out tangential films on the basis of Withnail and I might be a little disappointed by How to Get Ahead in Advertising. It lacks the emotional and narrative depth of Robinson’s first feature. What does work in its favor is the fully committed performance of Richard E. Grant, dueling with himself. A castigation of advertising and commodification of our lives that while a little heavy handed, feels even more pertinent than ever in our current age.
Bruce Robinson’s How to Get Ahead in Advertising is available now via Criterion
