Javier Bardem anchors The Good Boss with a strong performance that only casts a greater spotlight upon the weaknesses of the film around him. The actor is one of our more capable performers when it comes to switching between cold and congenial, and those capabilities are most definitely called upon here, in the role of a corporate leader whose entire motivation is guided by what is good for the company – except in those times when he only seems to consider what might benefit the man himself. In the opening scene, Bardem’s Julio Blanco gives an impassioned speech about passion – his father’s for the scales his company develops, his own for continuing that line of work into the present day and his deep appreciation for the employees of his company. In the background, an employee is fired and departs with barely a reasonable severance.
This dichotomy is simple stuff. Worse, writer/director Fernando León de Aranoa simplifies it to an even greater degree, as well as to the film’s detriment, by boiling down Julio’s entire personality and personal politics to a series of complications. Since the opening third of the story basically tells us exactly what to expect of this man and his contradictory sense of professional duty vs. personal gain, there is no surprise in store here. He responds and acts precisely as we predict he will, right up to and including an element of the third act that devolves into one instance of sudden, brutal violence. Everything always comes down to how Julio will handle a new bump in the road, but we already know that he will consider, first, his company and, second, himself.
The challenge for the audience, then, is simply to wait for the movie to catch up to that inevitable truth. Since it is such a simple idea, though, it makes little sense for Léon de Aranoa to have split the drama of this broad satire-cum-attempted-character-study into three conflicts. The most prominent of those three, one might guess, is his relationship with Miralles (Manolo Solo), an old “friend” whom Julio claims to value, even though his pal’s personal life has been a living hell for a long-enough time that one would think Julio would check in every once in a while. He hasn’t, and so the double revelation in store for Julio – that Miralles’ wife is leaving him, as well as the reason for that imminent abandonment – is entirely unwelcome at a time when the company is not exactly at 100%. In a move that is ethically gross and generally creepy, he even appeals to the man’s wife, Aurora (Mara Guil), to wait a month or so to make a move.
This man really has no knowledge or interest in what makes another person tick. It’s all about the company for Julio, and that Aurora might disrupt production, even for a single day, through her actions’ effect on Miralles is unacceptable. The second-most prominent complication surrounds the hiring and subsequent romancing of Liliana (Almudena Amor), a newly hired intern with the scales-developing company. She is young, but each is clearly interested in bedding the other – which becomes quite awkward once the revelation of who this young woman is to Julio, who really should have known from the beginning. Finally, a pair of minor conflicts merges into one when the troubles of a co-worker’s son collide with the firing of that employee in the opening scene – an employee who proceeds to protest the company, loudly, right in front of the building.
Other important details about Julio are sort of ignored here, from anything that might indicate how he became this way to his relationship with his own, utterly detached wife Adela (Sonia Almarcha). Bardem is great as a slimy and manipulative cad, but The Good Boss is only surface-deep in its examination of the character and his predisposition toward heartless corporate scumbaggery.
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