A Rare Realistic Portrayal of Working-Class American Life
Most Hollywood movies these days pretty much ignore the lives of ordinary working-class people. And when we do see working-class people portrayed, it's usually laughably inaccurate.
It shouldn't really be surprising. The affluent, "creative class" types who make Hollywood films are usually from upper-middle class backgrounds. Many of these people (along with our so-called "representatives" in Congress) wouldn't know real blue-collar work if it ran over them on the highway.
Additionally, Hollywood increasingly depends on the international box office these days to make its money. And gritty, working-class Hollywood movies have long bombed in overseas markets.
So it was refreshing to see this movie's take on blue-collar, working-class life. As someone who came from that background, I appreciate how it was realistically portrayed in the film. The scenes at the deli counter and in the supermarket in general did a nice job of portraying the reality of blue-collar, menial labor. The grind of working hard, day after day, and still barely making enough to pay the bills. The sort of bleak life where the only "retirement plan" you'll ever get is when you keel over and drop dead of a heart attack.
It's often claimed that America is a classless society. Of course, that is total nonsense. Today's America is in fact the most class-divided society in the First World. Actually, a lot of Americans have long accepted this state of affairs because we all are taught that class mobility is greater here than it is in, say, "socialist" Europe.
50 years ago, that was indeed the case. However, the fact is, class mobility is now actually greater in many European nations than it is in the U.S. (even though few Americans are likely aware of this). Nor is this some "lefty" point-of-view. How many people remember that this very topic was actually discussed in the GOP presidential debates in 2012? (Yes, that's right: the GOP debates).
It'd be nice if we had more movies that actually acknowledged that lower-income, blue-collar people exist in America. But instead, we get unrealistic movies that depict Americans as being portrayed as a lot more affluent than they really are (as well as a lot of superhero, comic book crap). But it all does well in the crucial overseas market. Given that America doesn't really have much left in the way of export markets (now that we no longer have much of a manufacturing base), it's a situation that is unlikely to change.