Movies about Unemployment office
It is often referenced in the media that a country is progressing by leaps and bounds in the matter of economy, but at the same time there is always a sharp increase in the number of unemployed. Growing population, inflation, corruption, despotism and various other factors might play a role in spawning unemployment. But, let’s forget the causes of unemployment and how it affects society on the whole. What does unemployment does to an individual and to his immediate family? In this recession era, the psychological effects of involuntary unemployment look daunting. Our societies have buried a thought that only our job defines our worthiness. For many of us job isn’t what we do to pay our bills — it defines who we are. And when that socioeconomic identity is taken away, the emotional consequences can be severe. The movies mentioned below in the list explore the various emotional stresses a person faces due to joblessness. If I have missed out any great movie, dealing this subject, please mention it in the comments section.
Vzhůru do vzduchu (2009)
Jason Reitman’s part funny, part serious work is about the corporate layoffs. Its protagonist Ryan Bingham, played charmingly by George Clooney, makes his living by ending the careers of others. His baritone voice and authoritative manner makes him to fly around US o downsize employees for companies whose HR departments are too cowardly to do the task themselves. It has got a bit touchy storyline and a script that loses some fire, but captures contemporary angst of the economic fallout with wit and humanity.
Tokijská sonáta (2008)
Famous J-horror director Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s bleakest indictment of modern Japan looks at the ripple effects caused within a family by corporate downsizing. The protagonist Ryuhei is cast out when his administrative job is outsourced to China. The humiliated breadwinner hides his unemployed state from his wife, Megumi and two sons. He suits up as usual and wanders around the city like a zombie and learns the routine of maintaining face over downsizing. The recession-era shows how out dignity is stripped away by a job and how the corporations turns our mind into vegetative state, devoid of basic human connections.
Pronásledování štěstí (2006)
This unsentimental Chris Gardner biopic takes an honest, intense look at the day-to-day survival that too many Americans must contend with. Every one of us could at least see some portion of the film and remember being faced with similar obstacles in their lives. Will Smith played Gardner and scored some great emotional points through his portrayal of an African-American male who turns out to be an extraordinary single-parent. The film convincingly asks us to never give up on our dreams, even when we are staying financially afloat.
Časový limit (2001)
Laurent Cantet’s French psychological drama tells the story of an executive who conceals, from his family that he has been fired from his job. He later invents a phony investing scheme, calling up old friends to invest in it. The film seriously conveys absurdity behind a white-collar corporate life and showcases how words like ‘emerging markets’ can draw in even smart guys to invest huge load of money. Unlike a Hollywood protagonist, the central character here avoids over-the-top performance giving way to subtle emotions. The strain and scenarios exhibited can be understood by anyone who has held a job.
Kancelářské prostory (1999)
Mike Judge’s satirical comedy must be dedicated to everyone, whose life and soul is stomped out by an uncaring corporate entity. The story revolves around a frustrated corporate employee Peter Gibbons, who through an accidental session of hypnotherapy is freed from chronic anxieties and fears of unemployment. Stephen Root playing the fat, mumbling employee, Milton and three workers bashing a fax machine with a baseball bat are some of the memorable situation in the movie. Even though the movie offers enough fun, you can’t miss out the bitter truths beneath those gags.
Ten Movies for the Times: All About Layoffs
Sometimes art imitates even the most disagreeable parts of life. With about 10 percent of all Americans unemployed in 2009, one of the year’s most popular movies turned out to be Up in the Air, a hard-to-classify film about Ryan Bingham, played by George Clooney, who travels the country laying off employees for bosses who want to avoid confrontation. Up in the Air is one of the latest of a type of feature film that first began rolling into theaters during the Reagan years – the layoff movie.
Over the past three decades, the layoff movie has reflected the fear and loathing of employees who were victims of corporate reengineering or simply downsizing during recessions. First up was Mr. Mom, starring Michael Keaton as a man who takes on homemaking duties after being let go from his engineering job, came to theaters in 1983, just as job security, especially for white collar workers, was becoming a thing of the past.
Layoffs today may seem like standard business practice, but it wasn’t until the early 1980s that corporations began to use widespread layoffs as operating procedure. It was in 1984 that The Bureau of Labor Statistics created the Mass Layoff Statistics Program. (Prior to this time, workers were often let go during tough times with the understanding that they’d be rehired as soon as it became practicable for the company to do so).
Ryan Bingham’s job would have been unthinkable fifty years ago. Prior to World War II, lifelong employment wasn’t the norm, unless you inherited Daddy’s business. “Turnover was really high, and employees would jump from company to company,” says Peter Cappelli, George W. Taylor Professor of Management at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School. Post-1945, the labor market evolved. “Unions and other organizations helped create systems that maintained employees with companies for life,” says Cappelli.
Jump to the early 1980s when a severe recession, burgeoning globalization and a shift in expectations created a perfect storm of workplace destabilization. “There was a general sense that employers were under siege from foreign competition and that government should do whatever it could to help them. So policies weakened the role of unions, but it was more that we shouldn’t expect firms to look out for their workers because they now had their own problems,” says Cappelli.
The sea change came when a company known for its loyalty to employees finally caved. “The defining moment was probably when IBM announced it was laying off workers,” says Cappelli. “The sense was, if IBM is doing that, with its history of no layoffs even in the Depression, we should as well.”
That was in 1993. Leading up to that point, films such as Michael Moore’s Roger and Me (1989), about the decline and fall of Flint, Mich., as its auto manufacturing jobs were outsourced to other countries, and Falling Down (1993), in which Michael Douglas’ character implodes soon after losing his job as a defense engineer, helped to drive the point home.
Keep reading for a list of 10 layoff movies from the past three decades.
Office Space (1999): The movie that brought “flair” and “a case of the Mondays” into the American vernacular takes a decidedly contemptuous view of modern office culture. A group of disillusioned suburban office workers hatch a penny-shaving scheme, while their company brings in outside consultants to implement a cost-cutting program that will include a round of layoffs. Protagonist Peter Gibbons’ indifference to the entire process paradoxically results in a promotion.
Památná nabídka:
Peter Gibbons: “What if we’re still doing this when we’re fifty?
Samir: It would be nice to have that kind of job security.
Lítám v tom (2009): The great recession’s greatest manifestation on film. The plot follows defiant loner Ryan Bingham (George Clooney) as he travels around the country doing his job, which is to terminate the jobs of others. Director Jason Reitman cast real people who had lost their jobs as the newly laid off to infuse the movie with a dose of the realities afflicting the country at the time of the film’s release.
Památný citát:
Man 3: On the stress level, I’ve heard that losing your job is like a death in the family but personally I feel more like the people I work with were my family and I died.
Roger a já (1989): Michael Moore’s first film explores the collapse of Flint, Michigan’s economy with an unabashed sympathy for laid off auto factory workers. Unlike most of the other films on this list, Roger and Me deals with working class unemployment – in the 1980s, General Motors closed a number of plants in Flint, leading to the dissolution of tens of thousands of jobs and wreaking economic havoc on the city, a plundering from which it never recovered.
Památný citát:
Newscaster: “The 1,800 hourly workers at this plant were sent home with flowers today … One worker told me, you know when they send you flowers? When you die.”
Pondělí na slunci (Spain, 2002): Another day, another dying industrial town, this time in northern Spain. Javier Bardem stars as Santa, one of a group of men who gather daily at a local bar to commiserate and try to forget their shared predicament. He dreams of moving to Australia in search of a better life as his former employer sues him for breaking a light in its factory.
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Společnost Men (2010): Scheduled for release later this year, Společnost Men stars Ben Affleck as a successful white collar businessman who falls victim to a round of corporate downsizing. He finds work with his blue collar brother-in-law, played by Kevin Costner, and reconsiders the goalposts that had formerly defined his life. The film was a hit at Sundance this year, where it generated some early Oscar buzz.
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Padající (1993): Michael Douglas plays a man who crumbles in dramatic fashion under the pressures of modern life over the course of a day in Los Angeles. It’s not until partway through the film that the audience learns he has recently been let go from his job as a defense engineer. Perhaps more than any other film on this list, Falling Down epitomizes the debilitating effect that a layoff can have on a man’s sense of self-worth (A recent New York Times article suggested that men take layoffs much harder than women.)
Památná nabídka:
William Foster: I am not economically viable.
Pane mami (1983): A Detroit-area family man loses his job as an engineer for one of the big automakers during the recession of the early 1980s, leading his formerly say-at-home wife to accept a position at an advertising agency while he assumes the responsibilities of homemaker and nanny. The expected hijinks ensue: The husband struggles to accomplish all of the chores the wife completed with aplomb, while the wife thrives in her new position. Mr. Mom is the rare film that examines auto-industry job loss from the perspective of a white-collar worker.
Památná nabídka:
Jinx: You’re not exactly walking out of here empty handed. You got your pension and I’ll give you this month’s gas money.
Larry: There’s only one more thing I want.
Jinx: What?
Larry: Disability!
Jinx: Hey keep that sense of humor, it’ll do you good.
Glengarry Glen Ross (1992): Sometimes, people will do whatever it takes to hold onto their jobs – even break the law. That’s what happens when a group of real estate salesmen are informed that in one week’s time, all but the two best among them will be let go. Deception, begging, burglary and arrests ensue. The kill-or-be-killed nature of the situation exposes each man’s insecurities, weaknesses and in some cases, ruthlessness.
Památná nabídka:
Levine: You’re gonna fire the bottom men on the list?
Williamson: That’s the way it is and I don’t make the rules. The rules come from downtown.
L’emploi du Temps (France, 2001): Released under the title Time Out in the United States, this French film’s protagonist goes to great lengths to hide his layoff from family and friends. His web of lies results in a tangle of deceit. In order to keep the lies going, he eventually gets involved in an investment scam and smuggling ring. L’emploi du Temps exemplifies the shame involved for many workers in the reality of a layoff.
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Full Monty (1997): Six unemployed men in the dying northern English steel town of Sheffield take it all off in a Chippendales-inspired scheme to meet their respective financial obligations. The lighthearted nature of their striptease belies the depression, struggle and hopelessness that have come to define these men’s lives. Indeed, marriages buckle, a father struggles to maintain his son’s respect, and one character attempts suicide.
Památná nabídka:
Gaz: You’re not our foreman anymore. You’re just like the rest of us: scrap.
The Top Ten Greatest Lay-off/ Unemployment Films
In the comedy film Office Space, Peter Gibbons (Ron Livingston) is a disgruntled software engineer stuck in a soul-sucking job at Initech Corporation. Alongside his equally tormented coworkers, Samir Nagheenanajar (Ajay Naidu) and Michael Bolton (David Herman), they suffer under the oppressive management of Bill Lumbergh (Gary Cole). The trio hatch a plan to steal fractions of pennies from the company, a scheme that spirals out of control. Directed by Mike Judge, this 1999 cult classic provides a satirical look at corporate culture and office politics.
Štěstí na dosah
Will Smith, Jaden Smith, Thandie Newton
In The Pursuit of Happyness, Chris Gardner (Will Smith) is a struggling salesman in San Francisco. With his son Christopher (Jaden Smith), he faces the harsh reality of homelessness after an unfortunate series of events. Amidst this, Gardner lands an unpaid internship at a prestigious brokerage firm. The film, based on a true story, follows their journey as Gardner, with unwavering determination and resilience, fights against all odds for a better future. The movie earned Will Smith an Academy Award nomination for Best Actor.
Společnost Men
Ben Affleck, Chris Cooper, Kevin Costner
A young executive at a shipping and manufacturing conglomerate, Bobby Walker (Ben Affleck) is on the fast track to the top. He is a rising star at work and has all the material trappings of success. Then his company goes through a few rounds of layoffs, so Bobby and colleagues Phil (Chris Cooper) and Gene (Tommy Lee Jones) find themselves on the unemployment line. As the year unfolds, all three must redefine their lives as they struggle to survive in a hostile post-career landscape.
Lítám v tom
George Clooney, Vera Farmiga, Anna Kendrick
In Up in the Air, we follow the life of Ryan Bingham (George Clooney), a corporate downsizer and frequent flyer, whose cherished life on the road is threatened just as he is on the cusp of reaching ten million miles in air travel. Sharing his journey is Alex Goran (Vera Farmiga), a fellow traveler, and Natalie Keener (Anna Kendrick), an ambitious young co-worker. Directed by Jason Reitman, this drama-comedy won Golden Globe awards for its screenplay and for Clooney’s performance. It paints a poignant portrait of a man forced to reevaluate his life amidst constant transit.
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