‘The Good Boss’ review: A business in the balance

“The Good Boss” depicts a busy week in the life of Julio Blanco (Mr. Bardem, who shows that even when playing someone unremarkable he can be amazing), a rich and self-satisfied owner of a scale manufacturer sets out to impress a committee. Judges to visit on any day during the process of selecting the winner of the State Government Award for Excellence in Business. At the site’s entrance, a proud display of the winery’s history, the wine cellar is somewhat indicative of all that is about to go down. A bird continuing to defecate on it suggests that things will go wrong.

In Mr. Bardem’s wonderful portrayal, Blanco is a bit cynical and entitled (he inherited the company from his father) but more or less sympathetic. Organizations need leaders, and there’s no question he leads. He tells his employees that he thinks of the company as family. Accordingly, he reconciles understanding with order.

Blanco’s challenges are many: a disgruntled ex-employee (Óscar de la Fuente) sets up camp on public land every street to provoke a daily protest by a man who is vulgar and obnoxious. With marriage problems, and a beautiful young apprentice (Almudena Amor) attracts his attention. He still has a place reserved on his wall of honor for the plaque he hopes to win from the government committee, and there is nothing to stop him from adding one more note of success to his self-congratulatory gallery.

The writer-director leaves it up to the audience to balance satire and reality to decide how to feel about Blanco. His factory seems to be pulling along just fine, and despite his obvious flaws, he makes a sincere effort to get to know his workers and understand their personal problems. Instead of firing Mirales, the no-good manager takes him to a quiet dinner, reminisces about their boyhood days together (Mirales’ father worked for Blanco’s father), and persuades him to share the details of his relationship woes in an effort to help him. Blanco even goes so far as to talk to Mirales’ wife (Mara Guil). This is a full service boss.

Blanco has selfish goals—he really wants that prize—and he’s ambitious, but he’s doing his best to keep everyone working together when the universe seems to be conspiring to tear everything apart. Anyone who has tried to manage any large group (and perhaps even a non-large group) is overwhelmed by the way problems seem to seek each other out and conspire together. Even a saint quickly sees the nearest wall, the way human flaws have a way of ruining even the best systems. Lurking in the background, the ethnic conflict between the native Spaniards and the Arabs was another source of unrest that no amount of business and administrative experience could cure. Standing at the crossroads of these forces is a grumpy old worker (Celso Bugallo) named Fortuna. Luck, as the director suggests, plays a greater role in business success than the average executive would like to admit.

Whether this is true or not, the film is smart and surprising. Rather than repeating the clichés of the heartlessness of the ruling class, the film can be seen as an accusation of leadership hypocrisy from a working-class perspective or an angry testimony from a manager. Run it as a family company. No matter how many times Blanco’s staff shows children, he can’t beat them.