Like A Boss Review Not Worth Investing In

Hayek’s vulture capitalist simpers over how well these girls have done for themselves, clearly seeing them as girls and herself as a woman: smarter, savvier, and more deserving of profiting off the success of their cheekily accessible products like the One Night Stand Kit. What follows is a clawless comedy in which two platonic soulmates must maintain their business partnership, lest their dreams get snatched away by a tiny, golf-club-wielding caricature of a successful woman who supposedly “has it all.”

Having it all is a familiar plague to any woman that Like a Boss should be able to interrogate, but there are too many clashing ingredients in this batch. It’s not that Mia and Mel are struggling with the archetypal money changes everything lesson in fiction: They don’t even get to reach Claire’s heights of wealth and access; her investment simply brings them out of the red, and that’s enough to drive a wedge between them.

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A potentially more interesting subplot exists due to the twosome’s other friends (Jessica St. Clair, Natasha Rothwell, and Ari Graynor) who appear to have grown up and beyond them, mostly by having babies. But despite Mia and Mel’s insistence that their business is their baby, their unorthodox parenting—like spending the night before a make-or-break presentation doing last minute brainstorming—makes them seem more entry-level rookies rather than Head Bitches in Charge (HBICs). Frankly, the friction between these thirtysomethings judging what success looks like is much more interesting than Claire’s attempts to break up this quirky team.

Kudos to Pitman and Cole-Kelly for tapping into that relatable tension; yet these scenes are still few and far-between in a film confused about its message.

Over and over, Like a Boss almost says something profound. In each of these conflicts, Mia and Mel are presented as the “befores,” and somehow lesser than the “afters:” single partiers versus saintly moms; a charmingly clashing duo versus Hayek’s streamlined solo entrepreneur; earnest businesswomen trying to hold on to their original company ethos instead of pragmatic boss-ass bitches willing to go with what sells, no matter how disingenuously.

For all of its efforts, Like a Boss is unfortunately nothing more than that fleeting thrill of an in-store makeover: fun in the moment, but nothing that would actually compel you to buy the products.