[Article to be found in the autumn magazine, at your newsstand or by subscription.] It’s back to work. Swim briefs have monopolized our thoughts long enough: here come starched shirts, too-tight ties, and firm looks in front of the coffee machine. Work hardly rivals a summer beach, but it can at least feed a few fantasies, provided we let our imagination wander.]
Article by Maurine Charrier, Laure Dasinieres, Tessa Laney and Florian Ques
Dix pour cent, provocative agent
Uploaded on Netflix on September 10, the film Dix pour cent comes to close the adventures of the ASK agency team, as brilliant as they are incapable of respecting the slightest professional boundary. After a few years away from our screens, it is the class’ return to school: Camille Cottin reunites with Andréa Martel and Nicolas Maury, her inimitable Hervé, alongside Laure Calamy (Noémie), Grégory Montel (Gabriel) or Stéfi Celma (Sofia). Behind the scenes, Fanny Herrero, the showrunner of the first three seasons, is back as well. This is enough to rekindle our attachment to this cheerful neurotic gang that has made French cinema a wonderful playground. The series has also been adapted in a host of countries, from Quebec to Indonesia… Andréa Martel, an authoritative, ambitious, and a little terrifying agent, makes us want to bow down without even asking for the size of the bonus. With her, vertical management suddenly makes sense. A workaholic who also commands hearts, the lesbian heroine treats her conquests like her clients: with passion, intensity… and very few time slots available. For four seasons, we’ve seen her love, lie, seduce, and crash into walls with the same energy she devotes to saving her stars’ careers.
Industry, sex in the City
Industry’s aspiring traders have seen the wolf, and not just Wall Street’s. In the HBO series, everything is about transactions: money, power, friendships, sex. Its creators, Mickey Down and Konrad Kay, know what they’re talking about. Both of them worked in banking before turning to writing. Well-cut suits and gleaming offices could grant this London City youth an air of respectability. The illusion lasts about six minutes. Their libido is a market that evades regulation. Finance hasn’t been this indecent since the 2008 crash.
Fellow Travelers, state liaison
Things heat up in the American government, in this series available on Paramount+. Timothy (Jonathan Bailey), a young graduate starting his way in Congress, falls for Hawkins (Matt Bomer), a senior State Department official whose shirts always seem a size too small. In 1950s America, a homophobic era, the two men must keep their affair hidden. Behind closed doors, the protocol is far more relaxed and their relationship takes a shape far less official…
The L Word, top-tier executive
During the six seasons of The L Word, now available on Prime Video, Bette Porter (Jennifer Beals) embodies the archetype of the careerist lesbian who puts her ambitions before her conjugal life. A fitted shirt, impeccable blow-dry and a gaze capable of turning a budget meeting into a cross-examination, she runs a modern art museum before diving into politics with the same authority. If her management of priorities is quite debatable, she is undeniably stylish, with a sharp sense for tailoring. Enough to motivate us to consider overtime.
How to Get Away with Murder, court-appointed lawyer
Charismatic, insolent, and far too confident, Connor Walsh (Jack Falahee) is the kind of guy people say they hate while checking if he hasn’t sent them a message. A law student as brilliant as ambitious, a fitted suit and a predator’s smile, he masters the art of breaking down defenses, in court and elsewhere. In the series led by Viola Davis (currently offered on M6+), his romance with Oliver, a geeky and more reserved programmer, has all the ingredients of a fanfiction written at 3 a.m.: secrets, desire, and boys who consistently make the least reasonable decisions.
Mad Men, office alpha
Don Draper (Jon Hamm) was designed to make the show’s viewers swoon, like flies in an ashtray. A precisely tied knot, cigarette in mouth, and a dominant-male gaze: dated but effective. Admittedly, he is selfish, cowardly, self-destructive and, to top it off, heterosexual. But in the face of this 1960s advertising prince, our judgment resigns. No matter what he sells, we sign the order form.
P.R2B, the Burnout Charmer
“Almost punk,” yet completely spent. Cravat-wearing and in the throes of a nervous breakdown, P.R2B sings of professional alienation and burnout with a sex appeal that occupational medicine had failed to document. On camera, the chanteuse wrangles the paperwork, yells in an antiseptic open space, and tries to break the chains of salaried employment. A model employee with two staples could blow the entire floor. We should heed the message, but this shirt distracts us.
The Good Fight, class action
Kept impeccably tidy, with a brush-out as mastered as her pleadings, Diane Lockhart, played by Christine Baranski, is in The Good Fight a brilliant lawyer with absolute elegance. A pro-LGBT Democrat, she sees her certainties wobble in the face of Trump-era America. To hold on, Diane turns to microdosed mushrooms and vents her anger in a hatchet-throwing club. A stress-management approach that LinkedIn still too rarely recommends. We love watching her lose her footing without ever losing her poise. Even in the midst of democratic collapse, some can remain presentable.
Jehnny Beth, negotiated layoff
In the video for “Broken Rib,” Jehnny Beth looks like a senior executive summoned at 9 a.m. to announce a layoff. With growls, this guttural chant borrowed from metal, she screams the necessity of continuing to live despite a broken heart. Her ultra-corporate look makes this fury even more spectacular. The more the setting seems to contain the emotions, the more they overflow. Hair slicked back, she turns the gray suit into armor. Joan of Arc heading to La Défense. The unions demand a procedure to preserve our cool.
Photo credits: Lionsgate Entertainment, Inc.
