The Good Boss (El Buen Patron)

Even before the pandemic the issues of good and bad bosses, workers’ rights, or lack of were current, under scrutiny and pressure respectively. The UK has been deliberating these for years and in some cases coming to a head. The Good Boss, albeit set in Spain, will no doubt resonate with some here on both sides.

With his pep talks Blanco (Javier Bardem) to staff at his factory manufacturing industrial scales, he’s charming and engaging, smarmy some would say. And at the moment his focus is on getting the factory ready for a visit from a committee that will judge if he merits a local business award. One which would be yet another on his wall at home. However problems start to when an ex-employee kicked out of the factory begins demonstrating on public land outside the factory that he thinks will put the judges off.

Within the company he is also starting to have difficulties with long-time friend and colleague Miralles’s (Manolo Solo) erratic behaviour due to work and domestic matters, beginning to have an effect on the business.

A new intake of interns arrives, one of whom Liliana (Almudena Amor) catches Blanco’s eye, and proves to be more of a handful that he could possibly have imagined. These are the prime strands that set up an intricate and slightly convoluted plot that drags in his wife, employees and friends.

What we have in The Good Boss is a troupe of actors at the top of their game. Bardem is entirely believable as the charismatic, predatory and ruthless Blanco; a man who cynically hides behind a veneer of trust and goodwill for the most self-interested of motives. While Solo as the lifelong friend who thought they had some sort of equilibrium with Blanco is slowly ground down by his own foolishness. Why the film is set in an industrial scale factory very soon becomes obvious.

There is no doubt about where writer and director Fernando Leon de Aranoa’s sympathy lies. There’s a lot in the film and while it all comes together the slow pace dampens interest at times. There’s also a tonal matter as strains towards satire and black comedy neither of which come off that well leaving the film in type of limbo.

It’s a twisty and talky story that, despite the excellent acting, at close to two hours is a slog. As the story develops so it gets murkier with manipulation, racism, blackmail and outright criminality, it is, when all is taken into consideration quite bleak and depressing.