The Associate
Director: | Donald Petrie |
Writer: | Nick Thiel |
Director of Photography: | Alex Nepomniaschy |
Editor: | Bonnie Koehler |
Music: | Christopher Tyng |
Production Designer: | Andrew Jackness |
Producers: | Frederic Golchan, Patrick Markey and Adam Leipzig |
Hollywood Pictures; PG-13; 114 minutes | |
Release: | 10/96 |
Cast: | Whoopi Goldberg, Dianne Wiest, Tim Daly, Bebe Neuwirth, Eli Wallach and Lainie Kazan |
Another star goes the cross-dressing route and fails to win audiences as Robin Williams did in Mrs. Doubtfire. Fed up with Wall Street's old boy network, Laurel Ayres (Goldberg) quits her job as a financial analyst when an incompetent male colleague gets the promotion she deserves. When she starts her own business but fails to attract clients, Ayres creates a partner, an investment genius with an unparalleled track record and calls him Robert S. Cutty. Business booms and Cutty becomes a legend in financial circles. But Ayres soon runs out of excuses about Cutty's absence from meetings and has no other choice than to don a wig and a latex white face. In what should be the film's funniest moments, Goldberg as a man falls flat, offering nothing more than a few sight gags. Wiest, of course, shines as Ayres's assistant.