The self-satire of The Secret of My Success (1987)
I’ve seen this film four times now—and, no, I don’t really know why
Whatever the intentions behind this bizarre comedy-romance from Herbert Ross (Footloose, Steel Magnolias), it is hard to watch The Secret of My Success without suspecting (or perhaps hoping) that it is in fact a feverish satire of 80s tropes and American dream-slash-fantasy narratives. Either way ahead of its time or otherwise far, far behind in a bandwagon bin of sleazy, sickly flicks about the hustle—it all depends on how one chooses to interpret the finer (or stranger) points of the film.
The plot revolves around the double life of Brantley Foster (Michael J. Fox), college wiz. Brantley, sick of the phrase ‘not enough experience,’ poses as a fictitious corporate exec called “Carlton Whitfield” at his uncle Howard’s (Richard Jordan) company—where he also happens to work full-time in the mail room. Despite doing both jobs well enough to avoid the sack, most of Brantley’s day appears to be spent changing between suits and his mailroom casual dress.
If that wasn’t enough to be getting on with, as well as riches and recognition Brantley also pursues the heart of company “financial wizard”, Christy Wills (Helen Slater)—and dodges the advances of his rowdy aunt, Vera (Margaret Whitton) with varying degrees of success. Yes, that’s right—his aunt.
Some parts are obviously self-aware and played up for laughs, like the dream-shot of Christy going round and round the literal revolving doors of Brantley’s imagination while he gawks on. Similar are the reused shots of marching suits that look like they were taken straight out of Koyaanisqatsi, stripped of Philip Glass’s magic, and played over and over ad nauseum (more so than the actual shots in Koyaanisqatsi, I mean).
Other parts seem less like parodies and more like uninspired filmmaking, plain and simple: that very 80s talking head intro; the endless synth-backed montages; that deus ex machina ending which not only ignores all of Brantley’s prior work, but actually renders it redundant. Are we meant to take these as intentionally comic inclusions, or is there only the unintentional hilarity arising from a lack of originality?
Even the central hook of the comedy—the cringeably confused chimera of nepotism and incest worming its way into the film’s sordid lust-quadrangle—is working on these two levels, straight-laced and ironic. There is that visceral, cringe-inducing, "gross-out" aspect that likely was the main selling point during its release—something prototypical of American Pie, Superbad, The Inbetweeners. But step back and it almost seems like you can imagine this to be a genuinely humorous (if not exactly profound) point about corporate nepotism.
After all, there is a great deal of talk about redundancy throughout the film. There is of course the scene involving Brantley’s first, short-lived job—but then the motif goes on and on, the film scarcely going ten minutes at a time without someone talking about someone getting fired. It seems unlikely that such lengths are necessary solely to establish the stakes for the main character; perhaps this backdrop is there to accentuate the amoral (or at least anti-heroic) nature of Brantley’s (and Howard’s) success story. Is it an accident that nepotism and luck are so integral to this story of escaping redundancy? Is there perhaps genius at work behind the madness of montages and crazy clichés? Please?
If nothing else, The Secret of My Success serves as its own self-satire. Whether or not it wants to, it presents the farce of corporate culture in all its incestuous glory. Laugh with it or at it, the result is largely the same. Yet, like a slightly drunk buffoon at a party you weren’t even sure you wanted to attend, the film inevitably perplexes us over that conundrum: is it, or is it not, in on the joke?
