A Working Girl for the age of ‘woke capitalism’
THE FINANCE GUY HAS BEEN A STOCK CHARACTER EVER since Gordon Gekko slithered onto the screen in 1987’s Wall Street, preaching the gospel of greed. We’ve seen nominally diversified variations on the theme, from Working Girl to Showtime’s Black Monday. Yet the genre has barely evolved since the ’80s, despite significant shifts in public opinion on banking.
Which is why it’s been surprising to see HBO’s attract so little attention. The smart, thoroughly contemporary drama follows postcollegiate recruits at fictional London firm Pierpoint & Co. In an atmosphere thick with performative confidence, where a tiny mistake could end a career before it’s begun, new hires must prove their mettle while accounting for how
