Late capitalism, which is fully globalized, financial rather than industrial and well beyond the bounds of decency and dignity that could restrain its avarice desires, is beguiling. It is as totalizing a structure as global society has ever seen, crossing political and cultural boundaries at a whim and far more powerful than any state or governing norm. Post-Volcker, post-End of History capitalism controls our lives and it is diabolical. But here is why it is fascinating and not just a vacuous Marvel film villain: it is simultaneously human—as in, it was created by and for humans—and extra-human, as in no human can really do much to defy it or change it or steer it. This beguiling nature of late capitalism emphasizes both the highlights and lowlights of the new film Working Man.
The eponymous man who works in the film is Allery Parkes (Peter Gerety), an elderly (his age is never given, but Gerety is two weeks from turning 80) factory worker who refused to retire until it was too late, as his factory was shuttered by some vampiric financial firm who bought it for spare parts. Stuck at home and economically precarious, Allery decides after a few empty days to continue “going to work” by reporting for his shift at the plant. He has to sneak in past the locked front gates and, because there is no electricity, he is reduced to scrubbing decades of grime off the machinery. His fellow laid-off workers notice his activities, particularly the frenetic Walter Brewer (Billy Brown), and they, too, begin going to the factory daily. Walter pulls a quick scam to get the power turned back on and they go back to work making small plastic parts for some other thing made somewhere else, until the big wigs at corporate find out, setting up a standoff.
Working Man, as is obvious from that plot synopsis, tackles big ideas about deindustrialization, capital flight, globalization and the economic woes of the US underclass (which is most of us, by the way). But it is really a personal film about Allery. Allery is a troubled man; he cannot cope with not being at the plant because he simply never bothered developing any hobbies. He refuses to be at home, seems to despise his wife of decades and has scant few ideas in his head. When he inadvertently starts his protest movement, he was not setting out to be some justice crusader; he was pouting, coming off more as the lead in an Ayn Rand novel who, through sheer force of asocial personal will, refuses to submit to the circumstances. Throughout the film, his character is deepened and complicated, but even at the height of the factory sit-in—of which he is the nominal leader—Allery is merely the idiot savant who accidentally says the right thing at the right time while Walter is truly in charge. At the film’s climax, Allery completes a fulfilling character arc and becomes, perhaps, a changed man. But it takes a while and Working Man suffers from having Allery be both a guy viewers should root for and a guy who is oblivious to his devoted spouse and alienated from his coworkers and neighbors, a guy so uncomplicated he seems literally born yesterday, and yet a guy who has lived a full life.
Working Man has to be a character study, even while trying to tackle themes endemic to late capitalism. This is because late capitalism is beguiling. How does one protest against a behemoth so large it blocks out the sun (a bad metaphor, of course, because the capitalist apocalypse involves burning so much carbon that the sun is intensified)? What can the workers do, laid off in the middle of a work week with three days’ notice, paltry severance and no other viable work within 100 miles? Working Man really gathers steam with the sit-in, because Allery is too vapid as a protagonist to lead the film. But, inevitably, for the sake of realism, the workers have to lose. Late capitalism does not care for humans, the workers have complicated motives and no collective network and neutral parties—such as the press—have little reason to side with the loser workers. The film goes for pathos here and mostly succeeds, even if many of the lines of dialogue are just exactly, perfectly on the nose. But because defeat for the working man is inevitable, the film becomes a story of personal growth for Allery; his work in the protest movement allowed him some form of self-actualization that means he can spend the rest of his life as a better, more complete person. And in the background, late capitalism churns on, all-seeing but without caring. That is what protest has become in these troubled times: a medium for the protestor to seek personal fulfillment, because structural change seems impossible.
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