Review of The Secret of My Success, directed by Herbert Ross

There are some movies I’ve watched in my life that I seriously question why I ever watched them. I will say, the premise to The Secret to My Success is something that didn’t interest me at all.

I’m someone who spends a ton of time curating my sense of self, and writing a blog and working as a film critic really makes you realize right off the bat what kind of movies you like in general. It really helps when you have to spend money and time on films—and I really hate to waste my time in general.

But, somehow, on the day I watched this movie I was really bored and scrolling through Netflix. I think what ended up compelling me to watch this, deep inside my soul, was the fact that I have such a big love for things set in New York City.

Whether they’re books, television shows, or movies, I have such a big passion for things in New York. I lived there once myself, so I get it. I really do.

I’ve rambled enough. Let’s get into the review!

A Midwestern college graduate moves to New York and learns the art of faking it until you make it.

Our main character in The Secret of My Success is Brantley, who just graduated from Kansas State University and assures his doting mother that everything will be fine in the big city. He has an entry level job lined up in finance, but when he arrives into the city, he shows up and realizes that he is going to be unemployed.

The company has been taken over by another company, and no one realized to tell him that he has been laid off before the job even started.

So Brantley heads to the interviews yet again, and is frustrated by the fact he cannot land a job anywhere. His mother tells him about a distant relative living in the city, and he claims this guy is his uncle.

Brantley ends up literally at the mailroom of his uncle’s company, and after getting ahold of company documents, Brantley realizes that everyone in the high positions of power are screwing up. Their decision making skills are apparently terrible.

When Brantley spots an empty office in the building, he uses his mailroom connection to claim he’s someone named Carlton, who is a new executive at the company.

He now does the mailroom job and the executive one, and he ends up becoming the object of affections of a recent Harvard grad who has the same amount of brains as he does. However, when his uncle’s wife seduces him.

His uncle arrives at the place, and the two realize they are related. Brantley zips out of there while trying to avoid being spotted by his uncle.

At the same time, though, the Harvard girl is having an affair with his uncle (this plot line had me shaking my head, like come on). His uncle asked her to spy on Carlton, thinking he’s a mole, and then there’s even more drama about a potential company takeover happening there.

As the drama ramps up, people suspecting each other as the mole, Brantley is found out after everyone ends up in the same bedroom. He is fired, his uncle thinking he is Whitfield, and his uncle’s wife divorces him.

Brantley and Harvard girl, Christy, now fired from their jobs, they put their brains together and get enough money to buy out the hostile corporation and continue with a hostile takeover.

The ex-wife tells the board everything Brantley’s uncle did, and then he’s escorted off the premises by security guards. Brantley and Christy then get together at the end.

Overall Thoughts

While I do love the plot line of a smart Harvard girlie, I think that this is a peak male gaze movie. Granted, it was from the eighties and directed by a man, so I couldn’t expect much from it in the end, but I wanted more from this kind of movie. It was simply entertainment and nothing more, as there wasn’t much to the plot I could hook onto.

I’d call it a one and done kind of movie. Its transitions of genres just didn’t work for me either, so I’d dub it a mediocre movie. Doesn’t mean it’s bad, though—taste is subjective and I could see how someone might love it.

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