How to Get Ahead in Advertising

"Nobody remembers a late television advert, they only remember a bad one"

In 1987 Bruce Robinson wrote and directed Withnail and I - a witty and bittersweet cult classic about two actors who go on holidays 'by mistake'. It's one of my favourite films, and features a breakout performance by the then-young Richard E. Grant as the melodramatic and debauched Withnail. Robinson and Grant, high on their 'indie' success, decided to team up again in 1989 with How to Get Ahead in Advertising.

How to Get Ahead in Advertising is a wonderfully cynical look at advertising and consumer culture. At the time critics and audiences didn't really know what to make of it as it features a Kafka-esque plot involving Dennis Dinbleby Bagley (Richard E. Grant) growing a second head out of the side of his neck (the film's title is a pun). In a way, with the film coming at the end of the 1980s, it's a blackly satirical look at the worst aspects of the decade... consumerism, ruthless marketing, yuppies, business success through pressure, and idealism as a trend. It's pretty easy to follow but Robinson might have been more successful if he'd made his satire in a less fantastical manner. The film we get though is quite an odd duck - surreal, grotesque and driven primarily by Richard E. Grant interacting with himself.

Dennis is a capable and ultra-successful ad exec who finds himself stumped when he has to come up with a campagn for a pimple cream. He starts cracking up when he can't get a handle on it, and an alarmingly large boil starts growing on his shoulder. The boil starts talking to him, spouting advertising-styled voiceovers and other awful things, and soon other people start hearing the boil talk as well. It's hard to tell at first if this is in Dennis' head or if the boil is genuinely able to talk as we see its manifestation through his eyes. As Dennis begins to turn against advertising, the boil starts to take control of him by becoming a punishing conscience... it becomes bullying, aggressive, authoritarian, etc. The boil is a symbol of our ugly consumerist impulses and (hilariously) as it takes over Dennis' body and grows into a second head it decides to try and market boils!


How to Get Ahead in Advertising is a satire of the darkly absurd, calling to mind Kafka's Metamorphosis in the way in combines fear and absurdity to comment on dehumanising aspects of our society. When Dennis suffers a complete psychological breakdown into two different personalities the film takes it a step further... mindbogglingly, both Dennis and his boil-head try to cover up the existence of the other. Dennis' darker side speaks as the 'boil' but his other side also hears it and tries to pretend it's really him that's doing the talking. It's hard to explain unless you watch the film, and I suspect this psychological complexity may also be part of the reason why some people have trouble with the film.

Grant is great in the lead role. No one swears quite like Richard E. Grant and this film is the sort of snidely funny project that suits him to a tee. Unfortunately the nature of the film and his character was probably too bizarre for him to attract any critical accolades or awards, which is a shame because it's a great performance that no one else could've pulled off quite like Grant does. It's a fascinating and entertaining comedy that takes the less easy path too, which is something to be admired.

DIRECTOR: Bruce Robinson
WRITER/SOURCE: Bruce Robinson
KEY ACTORS: Richard E. Grant, Rachel Ward, Richard Wilson, Mick Ford, Jacqueline Pearce, Jacqueline Tong

RELATED TEXTS:
- As mentioned earlier, Bruce Robinson and Richard E. Grant previously worked together on Withnail and I. Robinson tried to continue as a director-writer but grew jaded with the way Hollywood restricted his creativity after the straight-to-video film Jennifer Eight. He stopped directing after this but has recently been wooed out of retirement to direct the Johnny Depp-starring film The Rum Diary.
- For more about advertising, see the excellent TV series Mad Men.
- Also see the films Thank You For Smoking, Giants and Toys and Crazy People for more satire on advertising, and Wall Street and American Psycho for films that deal with the 80s 'greed is good' ethic.
- Kafka is a German novelist from the turn of the 20th century who has a lot to answer for. His stories used absurdly surreal elements, perhaps most famously in the novella Metamorphosis, which detailed one man's literal transformation into a giant cockroach.