Fruits of her labour: 5 cult films about women at work

“Released in 1996, Supermarket Woman is one of the lesser-known films on this list, made by the same director of Tampopo. It’s about this independent supermarket in this village, and a massive discount chain store opens next door. Gorô, who owns the supermarket, is panicking and one day bumps into an old school friend called Hanako. He explains the situation, and she begins to offer him some helpful advice on what he’s doing wrong. He then invites her to help him save the supermarket, and through this, ‘supermarket woman’ is born.”  

“She takes on the task of trying to save this supermarket. The film is so fun, cheerful and slapstick. She ignites a great deal of passion in her coworkers and brings back a lot of joy to their lives. The film is really about their relationships with one another and their togetherness.”   

“Directed by Jill Sprecher, Clockwatchers is about four women who work as temps and are chronically dissatisfied with their jobs. They have mundane office jobs that wear them down and are constantly given busy work by their managers. That might sound a bit drab, but it’s darkly comedic as well. Especially with the casting, you have Lisa Kudrow, Toni Collette, Parker Posey and Alanna Ubach, they are a real comedic bunch.”

“It’s a great film about workplace friendships, solidarity between women, and the way it can disappear when someone moves on. I programmed it for the season because it is still relevant to how we feel about work today. So many people don’t get meaning from their jobs, and they’re just sitting idly by waiting for the clock to hit five every day, but they also have these really intense bonds at work as well. Even if your work does give you meaning, you still need a job to survive. It shows the stupidity of it all. Someone on Letterboxd described it as an anti-capitalist, Marxist feminist masterpiece, which is intense but true.”

“Valis is the main character in The Second Mother, and she is a live-in housekeeper for this really wealthy family in São Paulo. She moved away years ago to send money back to her daughter, who was living with relatives at the time. When Jessica turns 18, she decides she wants to go to university in São Paulo, so she stays with Val and the family she lives with. After 15 years of working and living with this family, Jessica’s presence is quite disruptive because she’s this young girl who is very self-assured and exists outside of the world of work and is really attuned to the absurdity of everything.”

“The family they live with don’t explicitly assert that Val and Jessica are less than them, but when Jessica comes to live in their big mansion, her mother forces her to sleep in her room rather than stay in one of the many spare rooms. Jessica is baffled by this and the way she and her mother must make themselves smaller. She questions everything. The film excels at exposing class differences while also being incredibly funny.”

“A significant theme in Real Women Have Curves, like Supermarket Woman, is the importance of worker solidarity. America Ferrera plays high school student Ana Garcia, a first-generation immigrant in LA. She wants to attend college, but her family can’t afford it. Her mum and sister work at a garment factory. Anna wants something from life, but she doesn’t have the money behind her to do it. Her mom is telling her to settle down, get married, and have kids, but she wants to date and love herself.”

“The women in the garment factory are also significant to the story – they are vastly underpaid and treated incredibly unfairly. Still, through it all, they support each other as they work long hours in this extremely hot factory. They are in complete community with one another.”