The Secret of My Success

Herbert Ross’s The Secret of My Success is a passable corporate comedy carried by an unusually persuasive star. Its fantasy of advancement asks us to enjoy Brantley Foster’s nerve without looking too closely at what makes him qualified to succeed. That is a workable invitation for a farce, and Michael J. Fox does his considerable best to honour it. Too often, though, the jokes depend on his delivery to make them worth hearing.

Brantley’s other identity, Carlton Whitfield, gives the performance a useful supply of strain, even when the script is short of surprises. Michael J. Fox makes the ambition seem eager rather than calculating, which matters when the wish fulfilment is this shameless. We found ourselves rooting for him because his assurance never seems entirely settled; there is effort beneath the optimism. He makes us want the next opportunity to work out, even when we have little interest in the business surrounding it.

Helen Slater’s Christy Wills needs more comic room than the film allows her, and the supporting parts generally suffer from the attention lavished on Brantley. Richard Jordan gives Howard Prescott the necessary weight, though the corporate comedy offers him little that might complicate its familiar attitudes to authority. Margaret Whitton is livelier as Vera Prescott, bringing an appetite for the farce that the direction does not always share. These are performers doing useful work within narrow parts.

Carlo Di Palma photographs Manhattan with an inviting polish, giving the fantasy somewhere worth wanting to be. Edward Pisoni and Peter S. Larkin’s production design makes the corporate surroundings suitably desirable, helping to explain why Brantley is so keen to belong. The film plainly enjoys the prospect of success, and its visual finish does more to explain that attraction than the dialogue does. That glossy look is appropriate, although there are stretches when the setting is more engaging than the conversation.

Paul Hirsch’s editing keeps the corporate material moving briskly, but the bedroom farce is heavier going. The changes of comic pace expose how little Herbert Ross has found to connect the two. David Foster and Boris Blank’s music supplies welcome energy, and the soundtrack can put us in a better mood than the writing deserves. Yet brisk cutting and cheerful accompaniment cannot make a strained situation funny on their own.

The screenplay by Jack Epps Jr. and Jim Cash, with a writing credit for AJ Carothers, needs sharper jokes and more exact timing. A workplace farce can survive unlikely advancement and mistaken impressions; much of the pleasure comes from watching people struggle to maintain them. Here, the shifts between corporate ambition and sexual complication too often feel awkward. The film happily indulges the dream of getting ahead, but has little curiosity about what success might cost or whom it might exclude. We do not need a lecture on business ethics, though more resistance to Brantley’s wishes would have made the comedy less comfortable.

At 111 minutes, there is more of this than the premise can comfortably support. The charm remains, but it has to cover too many stretches in which the comedy merely goes through the motions. Admirers of Michael J. Fox’s eager, resilient screen presence will find enough to enjoy. Come for a light star vehicle, and allow for the jokes he cannot rescue.