If you want nuance, you'll not find it here, subtlety, pah!!! No, it's laid on with a shovel as advertising executive Richard E Grant discovers advertising is more shallow than a paddling pool, and like said pool, if a toddler was unable to contain a lavatorial need, full of....well,you know what! The trouble is, although we see Grant having his breakdown, becoming obsessive and growing a boil which becomes his alter-ego, we do not see his journey, he's dubbed a success by everyone, but we do not see him succeed. We merely witness the repercussions of his desultory realisation that he's been part of the problem, rather than the solution.The idea of the talking boil is fun, but the scriptwriter/director didn't know whether to make it surreal, knockabout or farce, in the end sticking to what he perceives as satire. I'd have liked the themes to have been developed more - together with the two differing characters within the same body. We each see thousands of commercials on television, commercialisation is everywhere, referees and umpires have ads on their sleeves, I'm expecting the police to have sponsors' names on their trousers when they finally come to get me.This needed a little more subtlety, more comedy with the beautiful wife, who seemed discomforted by having sex with the brash alter-ego - that could have produced an amusing scene or three.It's much better that Robert Altman's unsuccessful parody of fashion, Pret-a-Porter, but uses a sledgehammer to lance a boil.

What made good satire film? You might not have an idea. But everybody knows when they see a good one. Good satire film must succeed in good storytelling while making their statement. But it rarely to see a film that proudly calls themselves as a good one. As it might be a great chance that they couldn't find a right ingredient and then transformed into some kind of silly spoof or complete disaster (i.e. American Dreamz, Prêt-à-Porter, and The Bonfire of the Vanities). Anyway, there's an exception in some cases. This is a case that they don't particularly care much about story at all, and somehow it's still very intriguing to see. "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" is full-on sermonizing film that can talk you to the death. But the point that they wanted to make is so clear even you can't possibly not to appreciate by it.Here is the best way to put social-commentary into the film. You build story around the massage that you want to convey, and then making it as ridiculous as possible. Dennis (Richard E. Grant) is an advertising agent and a career obsessive young man who can't find his way in the new pimple cream campaign. His ongoing stress is causing him a nervous breakdown as he rejects everybody around him including his wife, Julia (Rachel Ward), his boss, John Bristol (Richard Wilson). And his rejection finally causes him a boil that constantly growing on his shoulder. Not soon after, it starts talking to him and developing into another head. Eventually, it starts to take control his entire body.What's wrong about Consumerism? Or Materialism? They may not give you the best idea about it. But at least they are absolutely right about what we have become or going to be. Personally, I think the film comes ahead of its time. We're talking about technology (i.e. Car, TV, Internet and everything) that plays a significant role in your everyday life. People can't possibly live without it. And we're constantly reminded by one thing called "an advertising". They will make you realize what you have missed in your life. But didn't the customer know that it doesn't really give a s**t about what your basic needs or what you have missed. All they care is selling whatever they have in the store.As it goes along, the film constantly transformed itself from dark comedy into pure madness. If we're not judging a movie on a social-commentary point-of-view (which is the main point of this project), but instead, focus on character study, it's still a very good film. Because I think it also can be a battle between consciences Dennis and his devil inside. We saw that he kept this balance quite well at the beginning. But soon after his breakdown, he began to reject his job and all consumerism perspective in everyday life. And because of that, his devil inside, who takes a lead role in Dennis's life until now, tried to resist and began to reclaim the body. In the end, it really doesn't matter that who won. But all the remaining is a pure demonic living human.All this, it couldn't be possible succeed if the actor who plays Dennis wasn't Richard E. Grant (whom, I think is awfully underrated actor working today). It's a daring and pretty intense role. With all the monologues (including one of the best and magnificent epilogue in movie history) and insane things he had to do, he nailed it and did it so powerful that we can't take our eyes off him. It's like, the director; Bruce Robinson took out his soul and his brain and put it in this amazing actor.I have yet to see Withnail & I (1987) which is the first collaboration between Bruce Robinson and Richard E. Grant. But if this film is an only film that Bruce and Richard did together, I won't be complaining about it. "How to Get Ahead in Advertising" is an honest film. It totally believes what it wanted to say. It might sound absolutely ridiculous sometime. But many times it perfectly precise. Tell me, don't you agree with our protagonist that "The world is one magnificent friggin' shop, and if it hasn't got a price tag, it isn't worth having"?BloodyMonday Rating: 3/4

Richard E. Grant is Dennis Bagley, an advertising executive who goes mad when he finds a boil growing on his neck that begins to talk to him. Basically a socialist manifesto that doesn't beat you upside the head with propaganda... UNTIL the last half hour or so. (As opposed to PURE propaganda such as "John Q", or to a lesser extant, "American Beauty") But when it DOES, boy does it ever. At one point in the film a taped Denis Bagley actually equates the Holocaust with eating meat. PETA would LOVE this film, just for that insane tripe on it's own. The sad thing is before all this socialistic BS, it actually was an OK film. This gets a passing grade, if just barely. However it IS a million times better then another "growing appendix" movie, "The Dark Backwards" (which is out and out HORRID!)My Grade: D

Its a brave, scathingly funny film that might be an acquired taste. This one definitely needs a memorable quotes section!! For a film made so long ago, its quite an accurate and eerie depiction of what the PR industry has mutated into...