Ember's analysis
- Pacing
- Brisk
- Intensity
- Strong
- Complexity
- Layered
- Violence
- Mild
- sardonic
- abrasive
- surreal
- cult movie night
- dark comedy night
What critics said
Critics broadly recognize a forceful, bizarre anti-consumerist satire elevated by Richard E. Grant's committed performance, while finding its polemical dialogue repetitive and overbearing.
What sets it apart
May contain story progression spoilers
Bagley's stress-related boil develops eyes and a mouth, turning consumerist anxiety into a speaking bodily presence.
Bagley's advertising career promotes cigarettes, cosmetics, hygiene products, and other manufactured anxieties.
Bagley and the boil engage in extended arguments about advertising, desire, and consumer society.
The film combines frenetic slapstick and grotesque imagery with a deliberately sour attack on advertising culture.
Films like How to Get Ahead in Advertising, and why
Society
surreal body transformation, grotesque consumer satire, and caustic dark humor
Fight Club
anti-consumerist satire, abrasive comic tone, and psychologically unstable protagonist
Brazil
surreal corporate grotesquerie, identity anxiety, and stylized black comedy
The Meaning of Life
provocative social satire, bodily disgust, and confrontational absurdism
Movie Details
- Director
- Bruce Robinson
- Release Date
- 1989-05-05
- Runtime
- 95 min
- Rating
- 6.3 / 10 (115)
Cast
- Richard E. Grant
- Rachel Ward
- Richard Wilson
- Jacqueline Tong
- Susan Wooldridge
- John Shrapnel
- Hugh Armstrong
- Mick Ford
- Jacqueline Pearce
- Christopher Simon
Where to watch in United States
- Streaming
- Criterion Channel
Streaming options come from TMDB and change over time.
Common questions
- What is How to Get Ahead in Advertising about?
- A ruthless advertising executive’s creative crisis mutates into a grotesque argument with his own talking boil about the moral cost of selling desire.
- What is How to Get Ahead in Advertising like to watch?
- Ember's analysis rates the pacing of How to Get Ahead in Advertising as brisk, its intensity as strong and its storytelling as layered.
- Is How to Get Ahead in Advertising violent?
- Only mildly. Ember rates the violence in How to Get Ahead in Advertising as mild.
- What did critics think of How to Get Ahead in Advertising?
- Critics broadly recognize a forceful, bizarre anti-consumerist satire elevated by Richard E. Grant's committed performance, while finding its polemical dialogue repetitive and overbearing.
- Which films are like How to Get Ahead in Advertising?
- Films with a similar feel include Society, Fight Club, Brazil, and The Meaning of Life.
- How long is How to Get Ahead in Advertising?
- How to Get Ahead in Advertising runs 95 minutes.
- Where can I watch How to Get Ahead in Advertising?
- In United States, How to Get Ahead in Advertising streams on Criterion Channel.
