Is
there anything worse than team-building exercises? Sure, cannibalism and getting
trapped in confined spaces are bad too, but faux empowerment really takes the
cake. Unfortunately, the employees of Incredible Edibles will have to endure
all these things, plus their boss’s usual bullying in Patrick Brice’s Corporate Animals, which opens this
Friday in New York.
Lucy
Vanderton’s mean streak is only surpassed by her vanity. She really believes
all her dressing-down sessions are for her employees’ own good—not that she
cares about them. Regrettably, her business acumen is not as considerable. With
rumors of insolvency swirling around the company, she packs up her staff for a
mandatory outward bound-style outing. It gives her the opportunity to preen and
show off her calculated wokeness, but her survival skills are not that hot
either.
Of
course, Vanderton insists they all engage in some high-risk spelunking, but
when their guide dies through misadventure, they are trapped without food—and
nobody will come looking for them anytime soon. Things get ugly as workplace
resentments boil over. Before long, they must resort to Donner Party tactics to
survive.
There
are no revelations in Corporate Animals,
but Brice and screenwriter Sam Bain keep it consistently brisk and amusing.
There is no doubt Demi Moore is the film’s no-to-secret weapon shamelessly
chewing the scenery as Vanderton. It is a claws-out, all-in performance that
has no use for subtlety, but it is very funny.
The
supporting cast get their digs in as well, particularly Isiah Whitlock Jr. and
Dan Bakkedahl as the kind of employees who just radiate discontent. Jessica
Williams and Karan Soni develop some nice rapport as Jess and Freddie, the two
supposed protégés, whom Vanderton has been playing-off against themselves.
Jennifer Kim (so memorable in Female Pervert) again shows off her remarkable facility for dead-pan humor, but
she really should have had more screen time. Likewise, Ed Helms’ necessarily
brief appearance as Brandon, the ill-fated guide, was probably considered a gag
in its own right.
The
laughs in Corporate mostly constitute
dark comedy, but the cannibalism business never approaches the in-your-face
discomfort of Raw. It really
functions better as a zeitgeisty Serial-style satire than a horror or
midnight movie. In fact, a high percentage of the jokes lampooning self-helpy
business-and-success double talk land on target (Jonathan Swift might approve).
Recommended for rude laughs, Corporate
Animals opens this Friday (9/20) in New York, at the Village East.
