Work / Bujalski

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“Very rare are the movie depictions of restaurant work that evoke the mental and emotional dissonance required to get through an eight-hour shift,” April Wolfe wrote in her Film Comment review of Support the Girls. “Andrew Bujalski’s Support the Girls—which takes place predominantly within a topsy-turvy 24-hour period, as the manager of a T&A sports bar juggles the concerns of every needy patron and employee—portrays precisely that odd mix of knowing self-abjection and bubbling, flirtatious confidence present in real-life restaurant workers.” The portrayal of work on screen is a practically inexhaustible topic for study, but recently we dipped a toe into the discussion, with a little help. A few weeks before the fall festival glut, I joined filmmaker/critic Sierra Pettengill, author of the Chick Strand feature in our September/October issue, for an interview/discussion with Bujalski concerning Support the Girls and the challenges of depicting work on screen.