This film would be worth watching just for Kevin Spacey's portrayal of the ultimate boss from hell, Buddy Ackerman, but there's also much more than that going on. Ostensibly a damning look at the inner workings of the film business, Swimming with Sharks just as accurately depicts any highly dysfunctional employer/employee/associate relationships, and that's a lot of them.
But even more than that, there is a lot of mostly unstated philosophical material underpinning much of the film, some of it literal and some more metaphorical, such as the ending. One of the key lines of dialogue towards this end is Ackerman's, "If you're not a rebel by 21, you've got no heart, and if you haven't gone establishment by 30, you've got no brain".
Ackerman obviously has problems or he wouldn't be acting quite in the way that he is, but director George Huang and Spacey are also careful to show that Ackerman has a lot more going on than surface behavior--he's acting the way that he is purposefully, both to get his due now as part of the establishment and to coyly manipulate his young, meek and abused underling, Guy (Frank Whaley), along with everyone else he comes into contact with. His aim is to mold Guy in a particular way--a way that works even though Guy thinks that he's severely breaking form in the extended penultimate scene that's intercut with Guy and Ackerman's history.
Huang shows professional relationships as consisting mostly of politicking and manipulation. That's true at every level--certainly even Guy is doing this. There is very little authenticity to anyone in their working relationships. That seems pretty accurate to me, unfortunately. It's notable that the one dream of authenticity in the film--Guy talking about moving to Wyoming with Dawn (Michelle Forbes)--is treated and dispensed with as an unreachable fantasy, and it's also notable (and is fairly literally pointed out in the film) that Dawn, the one character who tries to demand being more authentic amidst the "shark infested waters" of the professional world, basically never gets anywhere.
In the highly metaphorical ending of the film, things remain manipulative, political and backstabbing, and in that climate, at least two out of three characters "win". Huang seems to be suggesting that the professional world ain't likely to change any time soon, and that even if you try to change it or manipulate the game itself, you're likely to just get eaten up by it, processed by it and incorporated into it anyway. Again, I can't say I disagree with him.
But even more than that, there is a lot of mostly unstated philosophical material underpinning much of the film, some of it literal and some more metaphorical, such as the ending. One of the key lines of dialogue towards this end is Ackerman's, "If you're not a rebel by 21, you've got no heart, and if you haven't gone establishment by 30, you've got no brain".
Ackerman obviously has problems or he wouldn't be acting quite in the way that he is, but director George Huang and Spacey are also careful to show that Ackerman has a lot more going on than surface behavior--he's acting the way that he is purposefully, both to get his due now as part of the establishment and to coyly manipulate his young, meek and abused underling, Guy (Frank Whaley), along with everyone else he comes into contact with. His aim is to mold Guy in a particular way--a way that works even though Guy thinks that he's severely breaking form in the extended penultimate scene that's intercut with Guy and Ackerman's history.
Huang shows professional relationships as consisting mostly of politicking and manipulation. That's true at every level--certainly even Guy is doing this. There is very little authenticity to anyone in their working relationships. That seems pretty accurate to me, unfortunately. It's notable that the one dream of authenticity in the film--Guy talking about moving to Wyoming with Dawn (Michelle Forbes)--is treated and dispensed with as an unreachable fantasy, and it's also notable (and is fairly literally pointed out in the film) that Dawn, the one character who tries to demand being more authentic amidst the "shark infested waters" of the professional world, basically never gets anywhere.
In the highly metaphorical ending of the film, things remain manipulative, political and backstabbing, and in that climate, at least two out of three characters "win". Huang seems to be suggesting that the professional world ain't likely to change any time soon, and that even if you try to change it or manipulate the game itself, you're likely to just get eaten up by it, processed by it and incorporated into it anyway. Again, I can't say I disagree with him.