Glengarry Glen Ross
Directed by James Foley
- crime
- drama
- mystery
The story
An examination of the machinations behind the scenes at a real estate office. Unscrupulous salesmen try to hawk dubious real estate to suckers.
What it’s like
Long, talky scenes played in cramped rooms under hard fluorescent light, with the camera pressed close and restless as salesmen circle one another across cluttered desks, bar counters and a rain-slicked Chicago parking lot. The palette is drab and institutional: beige walls, stained carpet, cigarette haze, dim orange streetlight leaking through office blinds after dark. Mamet's dialogue is the main event, rapid overlapping speech with a rhythm like jabbing percussion, and the score is sparse, mostly silence and ambient room noise that makes every raised voice feel louder. The mood is bitter, sweaty and darkly comic, a slow-burning unease that tips into jolts of anger and humiliation. Language is sharp and profane throughout, there is a brief, sudden act of violence and a robbery, and the tension is psychological rather than gory. Best suited to a late-night watch, to viewers who love actors trading barbs at full tilt, and to anyone wanting a cynical, unsentimental portrait of ambition collapsing into betrayal.
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