The Good Boss review Spoilers

The film begins with Julio Blanco (Javier Bardem), the boss of a scale company, giving a pep talk to his factory employees, about how they are all one, big family, telling his staff that they are the children he and his wife never had, while an old-aged longtime employee in the background keeps nodding his head agreeing with what he said. Right from the start, Blanco does appear to be a benevolent fatherly figure who is willing to go out of his way to help his “children”—when the son of the old-aged employee is arrested for beating up an immigrant, Blanco uses his high-level personal relations to get the kid out of prison and even arranges for the kid to work at the dress store run by his wife.

However, we soon begin to notice that some of his favors do come with a catch. The company is up for an award described as “the Oscar of scales.” Blanco is determined to win it at all costs. So the employees should be on their best behavior when the judges visit. As long as he passes this examination, he can hang more trophies on the wall. Yet beneath the surface, turbulence swirls.

A recently fired employee, Jose, has camped outside and staged a protest next door that will be the first thing judges see when they arrive.

Inside the factory, longtime production manager and childhood friend Miralles is driven to distraction by recent marital issues that he makes a series of errors that threaten the efficiency of production.

To make things even more complicated, Blanco finds himself falling into bed with one of the new interns, Lilliana. And unlike the other interns he plays with before, this one is hard to get rid of.

Blanco trying to save his factory becomes the main goal of the film. But he does it all wrong. We see Blanco bustling around Miralles and his wife and even the guy his wife having an affair with, trying to save Miralles’s marriage so that Miralles will perform perfectly at the factory. But things only get worse, Miralles gets so depressed that he even stops showing up in the factory anymore, causing production stagnation. Blanco ignores Jose’s demand and tries to report him to the city hall to get rid of him. He also finds out Lilliana is the daughter of one of his best friends. He couldn’t recognize her since she has grown up to be a sexy young lady. He treats people like they are items that he can manipulate and control. But this time, everything is out of control.

It’s imminent for the judges to visit the factory yet all the problems only get even worse. Blanco finally gives in and offers Jose whatever job he wants, But after a bunch of humiliation by Blanco(even not allowing him to use the factory toilet when he has trouble with diarrhea), Jose does not want his job back anymore. Now the issues between them deteriorate from job disputes to personal grudges. Jose just wants revenge. He raises the loudspeaker in the face of Blanco yelling “Blanco go to eat shit”. That’s the moment Blanco has a nervous breakdown.

Afterward, when leaving the factory, Blanco has a heart-to-heart talk with the security guard. The performance Branco gives in this scene is so excellent that he tricks not only the security guard but also the audience. The scene shows the hypocrisy of Branco perfectly. Blanco compares his running of the company to the amputation of the surgeon, when the leg stops working, you have to amputate it to save other parts of the body. It’s cruel but necessary. He feels very bad for firing employees, yet he has no choice. But if you think this movie is about Blanco’s inner journey of discovering his insufficiency and changes to become a better person. Then you are wrong. Because what comes next really shows what a despicable person he is. He deteriorates into an even worse asshole. The coming plot not only slaps the audience in the face but also creates the most cinematic moment of the movie.

After the nervous breakdown. Blanco makes up his mind to go astray by hiring the son of the longtime employee (the same kid he saves out of prison) to beat up Jose and burn his camp. So his offer of opera tickets to the security guy is just to send him away when violence happens. But things backfire badly. Jose accidentally kills the kid using a hammer and is taken into custody for it. The boss gets what he wanted at the cost of the death of his longtime employee’s son. At the kid's funeral, Blanco shows no regrets about what he has done while making the funeral a show to the media. He even gives a speech offering condolences and a token pension to the longtime employee, just to show what a good boss he is.

He actually has an epiphany about what he needs to do to save all his troubles. “Little Trick”, as he describes, is used for all his problems. He decided to fire the production manager Miralles. But Miralles threatens to disclose the information he gathers against the company to save his job while Blanco already has even worst information against him - that Miralles had forced himself on the company secretary.

To prevent Liliana from staying at the company, Blanco wants to let her go as soon as her internship’s up. But to his surprise. Liliana shows up at his house having red wine with Blanco’s wife and uses her affairs with Blanco as a threat to get herself a job as the marketing manager. This also reflects the new era of women's reaction to the male-dominated power game. At this moment, her illicit sexual relationship with Blanco is indeed her deadliest and most effective weapon. At last, Blanco quiets all the riots and gets the trophy he wanted.

The ending scene of “the good boss” is very similar to the opening scene when Blanco gives the speech in the factory. Blanco stands in the front looking at the trophies he got for his excellent company, while the longtime employee stands in the background gazing fiercely at Blanco. At some point, Blanco seemingly notices the pain of the longtime employee whose son has died. Tears drop off Blanco’s face. we thought Blanco finally gets what he wanted and starts to notice the harm he caused for others. But when he speaks, all he notices is that all the trophies on his wall look kind of outbalanced. That’s what he is crying about, how ironic.

At the end of the film, Blanco loses the respect of the longtime employee. His changing attitude toward his boss is just like the changing attitude of the audience. At last, Blanco turns into a crude hypocritic mean asshole who has no empathy for others. The audience expects all the latent bombs around him to go off but they don’t. He solves all his problems using despicable means, making the company look excellent on the surface. Winning the prize at last.

The balance becomes a metaphorical symbol of the film, defying the usual notions of fairness and becoming physical evidence of what Blanco has done.

Just like using a bullet below one of its trays to maintain the fragile balance of the scales, the image Blanco creates using all despicable means to make the company look perfect on the surface, is fake and fragile, and will ultimately collapse in the end. It's just like the ever-rising embankments and riverbeds that only get worse when floods erupt.