Rewatchable scenes: Tom learns he may lose his job, then meets Meredith and angrily tells his staff he was passed over. The workplace banter is praised as absurdly full of statements that would now prompt HR complaints.
The staff's impromptu feminism debate is praised, especially the female engineer who can trade jokes with the men while explaining obstacles they dismiss. Dennis Miller supplies the wisecracks.
The after-hours drink with Meredith is praised for Moore's intensity and described as exceptionally charged without nudity. The hosts debate how its appeal implicates viewers because she ignores refusal, while the former couple's familiarity complicates the scene.
Meredith invokes their sexual history, comments cruelly on Tom's wife and domestic life, and stresses that he has more to lose. The old-flame trope and personal familiarity help explain his initial participation.
The encounter is compared with Single White Female's scene of a man outwardly resisting while participating; that film is preferred in the comparison, and its subsequent self-righteous response is mocked.
Tom seeing his reflection and recognizing what he is doing is singled out as an exceptional Great Shot Gordo moment.
Meredith's furious reaction after Tom stops and her demand that he return are praised for Moore's commitment and the scene's magnetic excess.
Dennis Miller exposes Tom's situation at a double date; Tom's wife says she already knows. Her later accounting of his mistakes is praised, along with his defensive speech about power.
Tom's deposition is praised for both lawyers and its squirm-inducing questions, with his female attorney opposed by Meredith's traditional male lawyer.
Meredith's deposition unravels through the rare 1991 Pahlmeyer Chardonnay: ordering it weeks earlier undermines her account of an impromptu meeting. The hosts enjoy the wine knowledge and legal construction.
The recording exposes Meredith's account, after which she doubles down with a speech about sexual aggression and women in power. The hosts compare the shift with Sharon Stone's interrogation and praise its theatrical excess.
The hotel-room virtual-reality sequence is a favorite for its cliff, poor effects, Meredith's avatar jump scare, and her angry computer face. Its file retrieval is contrasted with modern VR games used for amusement.
Getting into a hotel room by asking staff to clean it is praised as a 1990s movie device while questioned as real-world security, with Pacific Heights as another example.
The shareholder showdown firing Meredith is called unrealistic but entertaining. The ending gives Stephanie the job, reveals the anonymous friend, and restores Tom's family and employment.
The Donald Sutherland sexual-advance dream is called the funniest scene by one participant and an aged-worst choice by another, with its close-up treated as a jump scare.
Final scene choices: Van's sexual encounter choice is acknowledged, while another participant favors the comic hotel-room VR sequence.
Most 1994 candidates include reading email aloud, the Jeep Cherokee, Seattle's cultural moment, and Dennis Miller as a programmer. Casual workplace harassment, especially the assistant's backside slap, is the strongest choice.
Aged best begins with casting Dennis Miller and allowing a comedian to perform his own style, alongside affection for his HBO show and The Net role.
Dennis Miller's brief appearances and familiar comic voice are an aged-best choice.
Tom's small chair, mocked tie, and steadily diminishing confidence effectively undercut his expected promotion over the course of the day; weekday title cards reinforce the progression.
The dehumanizing corporate culture, embodied by Dylan Baker’s automaton-like executive, is an aged-best choice.
The discussion of consent that can begin or end at any moment is an aged-best choice, recalling later Me Too debates and the long history of this conversation.
The film's clumsy but substantive treatment of social issues is compared with Philadelphia; its anxious straight-white-male rhetoric is seen as anticipating later public discourse.
Meredith’s going-down elevator entrance is praised.
Sneaking into a hotel room while its occupant approaches remains an effective suspense device.
Tom's sudden shower after the encounter is both suspicious and compelling filmmaking as he hides scratches and his wife mentions Meredith's call. A DeRay Davis routine about habitual showers is used to explain the attempted cover.
Scene-stealing location: the office building, reportedly constructed for the film because Levinson wanted glass walls that let people observe one another.
Meredith receives both the Elisabeth Shue Oxford electrochemist award and the Vincent Chase job-competence award. Her pageant background seems a stretch for a senior technology role, though unspecified later education is offered as a possibility.
Meredith receives both the Elisabeth Shue Oxford electrochemist award and the Vincent Chase job-competence award. Her pageant background seems a stretch for a senior technology role, though unspecified later education is offered as a possibility.
Meredith is seen as an operator who surpasses more qualified colleagues, but her cost-cutting product failure and elaborate, recorded attempt to frame Tom make the case that she is bad at the job.
Weak link: the harassment scheme is unnecessary to framing Tom for the failed CD-ROMs, although it is necessary to the movie's premise and marketing.
One participant names the wife as weak link, arguing that she adds little and inconsistently supports Tom; another participant had her under aged worst. The suggestion that Tom should instead partner with Meredith begins here.
The wife is criticized for insufficient anger and inconsistent characterization, unlike Jeanne Tripplehorn's Basic Instinct character, who continually exposes the protagonist's nature.
A defense reads the wife's doubt as showing how harassment victims are questioned even by loved ones. Dennis Miller's response is compared with victim-blaming arguments heard in the 1990s; the hosts explicitly reject those arguments as excuses.
The wife is still judged too forgiving, with a proposed scene of renewed anger over mundane requests such as coffee.
