Career Opportunities - Film Review

Lately, I've been in a bit of a rut and been looking for something to help me bounce back. There's something positively uplifting about the many works of John Hughes, and although he didn't direct this one, you can see his fingerprints are all over it. In a world filled with constant news about plagues, war, and social media feuds, sometimes it's good to take a break and watch two attractive young people get locked in a Target for a while.

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Where You Can Find It: I checked this one out on Amazon Video where it is available for rent/purchase.

General Information 
Career Opportunities is a romantic comedy film that was released on 29 March 1991. It serves as the directorial debut of Bryan Gordon with the legendary John Hughes writing and co-producing alongside A. Hunt Lowry. Donald McAlpine handled the cinematography for the film, while Thomas Newman contributed the score. The film grossed around $11 million at the box office, which is fairly low in comparison to more well-known John Hughes films like Pretty in Pink and The Breakfast Club. Its critical reception may be partially responsible for the low returns as it holds a 41 Metascore on Metacritic, alongside a painful 39% Tomatometer rating on Rotten Tomatoes.

The Story
Slacker and serial liar, Jim Dodge (played by Frank Whaley), is a failure to launch that struggles to hold down a job while still living with his parents. After being fired from an animal shelter, Jim's father (John Jackson) gives him one last chance to find gainful employment or else Jim will be put on the next bus to St. Louis. Jim takes on the position of "Night Cleanup Boy" at the local Target and finds himself locked inside the superstore for an entire evening. It doesn't take long before Jim discovers his old high school crush, Josie McClellan (Jennifer Connelly), is also locked inside with him after she chickened out on shoplifting earlier that day. Together, the two will confront their inner conflicts and examine what it means to actually grow up.

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These two have all night to combat their inner demons and check out the clearance aisle

There was a lot of potential for this film as it carries a lot of themes similar to Hughes' magnum opus, The Breakfast Club, but it completely fumbles the third act by injecting a new problem set for Jim and Josie that robs the plot of its best aspects. Like his earlier works, the story shines brightest when Jim and Josie are just sitting together coming to grips with why they are the way that they are. By the end, there's a solid understanding of why Josie acts out and causes trouble for her abusive father, but Jim never gets a chance to reach that same conclusion. Additionally, there's little to no character growth in either protagonist. It almost feels as though Hughes wrote the first two acts and then someone else hastily scribbled together the third one without paying any attention to what came before.

One area I will applaud this film in is through its frequently entertaining dialogue. It's a blast watching Jim flimflam through interviews and outright lie when there's no remotely logical reason to even do so. I'm fairly curious to know how much of Jim's dialogue was actually written as opposed to how much Frank Whaley may have improvised. There's a brief exchange between Jim and the store manager (an uncredited John Candy) that was genuinely funny. Jim Dodge reminds me somewhat of a combination of Pretty in Pink's Ducky and Sixteen Candles' Farmer Ted. The many conversations between Jim and Josie are also pretty compelling, but (once again) it's a shame that viewers never get a final sit-down to close things out, like how The Breakfast Club did.

Special Effects/Atmosphere

It's pretty rare to see product placement this front-and-center with the Target brand literally looming over the back of one of the protagonists for much of the film. Despite that, this film never felt like a Target advertisement, and it comes off as a lot more genuine with an actual real store used as the setting as opposed to some fictional business. I can't be sure, but it honestly seems like Career Opportunities was actually filmed inside a real Target superstore too as the set looks exactly like something a person would see today if they visited their local outlet.

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Jim and Josie get quality product placement all to themselves

 

An area where many young adult films get major traction is in their soundtracks. John Hughes films may be the first big examples of this as they featured memorable tracks like "Don't You Forget About Me" by Simple Mind in The Breakfast Club or "If You Leave" by Orchestral Manoeuvres In the Dark in Pretty in Pink. Career Opportunities rocks a plethora of tracks firmly rooted in its early 90's aesthetic, but I never felt all that attached to any of them. None of them particularly stood out to me, but this may be a subjective observation.

The Acting

Arguably one of the most cringe-inducing aspects of this film is its treatment of Jennifer Connelly as Josie McClellan. It's obvious throughout the film that she was cast just to look hot as she doesn't get nearly as much to do as Whaley does while some of the things she does do are pretty painful to watch. There's a scene in the third act where a group of guys silently eat corn dogs while watching her ride an electronic horse in a suggestive manner. It all eerily reminds me of Megan Fox's role in Transformers, which leaves me disappointed as Hughes' writing for actresses is frequently top-notch.

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Jennifer Connelly doesn't exactly get Oscar-worthy moments in this film

I've only ever seen Frank Whaley in smaller supporting roles, so it was cool to see him as a lead. He does a well enough job as the fast-talking Jim Dodge, although his chemistry with Jennifer Connelly lacks that spark one might have seen between Judd Nelson and Molly Ringwald in The Breakfast Club. Whaley is at his best though in just how he carries himself. Not everyone can make roller-skating in their underwear while wearing a wedding veil look normal, but he pulls it off with panache and I chuckled quite a bit when he casually rode a limo to his first day at work.

The Best of the Best: When Jim negotiates for the wrong job with the store manager.

The Worst of the Worst: The disappointing third act.

Calhooey Score: 5/10 - Average

Would I Recommend?

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Look for it in the bargain bin

Career Opportunities could have been another The Breakfast Club, but its treatment of its female lead and the abrupt shift in the third act spoils the goodwill its fun dialogue earned in its initial half. Viewers who like young adult films like John Hughes' earlier works may have a decent time with this, and it's worth noting that it's a relatively short movie (81 minutes). If you're looking for something breezy and have some time on your hands, this might just be worth renting.

Spoiler Comments

• Target will always be better than Walmart.
  
• Jim seems to have a thing about not wearing pants while at work. His constant lying is certainly a problem, but I think this too needs to be addressed at some point.
  
• If I ever meet Jennifer Connelly, I hope she greets me like how she greeted that businessman who tried to bribe Josie's dad.
• I love that Jim can't even tell the truth about simply seeing Josie at the gas station. 
  
• One of the aspects that feels so weird about this film was the revelation that Josie's father physically beats her. It's mentioned twice, but it's never properly addressed. It almost feels like Josie's dad (who spends most of the film trying to find her with a police officer) is supposed to be a comical character, which doesn't mesh well with what he's openly admitted to doing.
• Jim's dad on the other hand has the patience of a saint. He may have weird eating habits, but he might just be the real hero of this story.
  
• RIP John Candy. You were a legend.
• I wonder if Target still encourages their janitors to greet new hires with shotguns at the ready.
• I do have to admit that I was surprised when the gun actually came back into play near the end of the film. Chekhov's Gun, that is not!
  
• Do Targets really get that dirty every day? There was debris everywhere in the aisles.
  
• When Jim hoodwinked the robbers the first time by making them think there was an FBI sting operation there, I was amazed they didn't shoot him out of surprise alone when he began running around shouting and grabbing electronics.
  
• I'm not sure what the ending of this film is trying to tell me. 
• I feel like Jim's habit of lying is now only reinforced as it actually helped keep him alive while Target was robbed by those thieves.
• The same somewhat applies to Josie. She started the film essentially wanting to run away from her problems, and the film ends with her running away from her problems.
• It's cool that Jim and Josie are relaxing in style in California, but neither of them have any real job experience and the roughly $50 thousand Josie stole from her father will only last them for so long.
  

References

(1) Career Opportunities. (1991). Career Opportunities film image. IMDB. Retrieved from: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0101545/. 

(2) Tudor, J. (n.d.). Jim and Josie image. ZekeFilm. Retrieved from: https://www.zekefilm.org/2021/07/03/career-opportunities-1991-blu-ray-review/.

(3) thesquonk. (2012, November 22). Jim and Josie in Target image. Forgotten Films. Retrieved from: https://forgottenfilmcast.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/crush-a-thon-career-opportunities/.

(4) Cinama Parrot Disco. (2014, March 10). Josie riding a horse gif. Retrieved from: https://table9mutant.wordpress.com/2014/03/10/career-opportunities-1991-review/.

(5) thesquonk. (2012, November 22). Jim and Josie watching television image. Forgotten Films. Retrieved from: https://forgottenfilmcast.wordpress.com/2012/11/22/crush-a-thon-career-opportunities/.