Number One (Numèro Uno) (aka Woman Up) (2017)

In what is a really strong engrossing start to the film, a group of feminists approach Emmanuelle Blachey, a business executive, with a plan to manouevre her into the top role at a government water company, but is the corporate skullduggery Blachey has to contend with at the hands of rivals for the position better or worse than the treatment she receives from her current boss and colleagues who objectify and devalue her and in one weird moment that almost derails the whole movie, let her sing to them over dinner on an oil rig? 

★★★☆☆

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The Tip of the Iceberg (La Punta Del Iceberg) (2016)

 

This thriller about a woman, Sofia Cuevas who in her capacity as a company director is sent to investigate a series of suicides at a branch of her employer's megacorporation, has a tricky job trying to hit the right note because although you expect some moments of solemnity in a thriller about suicide, things become outright maudlin -  scarves flutter in slow motion in the wind and workers who have suicided reappear and look pained or at peace depending on the current status of Cuevas' investigation - making this a slick corporate thriller with jarring, emotionally overwrought moments, but it is always interesting, calling into question the line between work and life and control and subservience, and features a terrific performance from lead Maribel Verdú.

★★★☆☆

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The Founder (2016)

Like The Social Network, this corporate biopic details the staggering rise and rise of a business - here, McDonalds - and uncannily it too centers on a corporate go-getter whose vision and drive far outstrip those of the founding brothers left watching their own creation run away from them; whatever your thoughts on the golden arches, Michael Keaton's Ray Kroc, with his mad enthusiasm for the speedy kitchen and his simple but ingenious corporate manoeuvres, is so compelling he will have you grinning from ear to ear. 

★★★★☆

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Love Crime (Crime d'amour) (2010)

It is hastily acted as though there wasn't time or concern for anything other than a first take, and it is as sparse as a Simenon novel without a frame or word of dialogue wasted, making this French thriller about corporate rivals and murder an uninvolving but nonetheless intriguing slip of a story.

★★★☆☆

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